


Shadow Proves the Sunshine (A Tuck in Time)

by Suikyou



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Urban Fantasy/DnD fusion, Widojest Week, abuse by mentor, atypical Jester background, psychological abuse, shadow dogs, typical Caleb background
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25180360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suikyou/pseuds/Suikyou
Summary: They call it the Institute.Small, secretive, it appears to most to be just an oddball research consortium. Its true purpose: to study the nature of magic and the Planes, and to prevent planar incursions from causing too much trouble.Caleb Widogast is a talented arcanist, but stays mostly on the research and teaching side of things. But when Beau needs an arcanist along for her field exam, it's not a job he can say 'no' to. Even if he'd known that Jester Lavorre - former student, self-proclaimed coffee buddy, and current “useless” crush  - was along for the ride.A fall night in a barren cornfield - what could go wrong?
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 74
Kudos: 74
Collections: Widojest Week 2020





	1. Aptly Chosen Proofs

**Author's Note:**

> One day, my friends, I will write short! But this is not that day or that story, which ended up _ginormous_ and so gets pieced out because I didn't finish editing it. Based on Widojest Week 2020 prompt "alternate universe," and posted now because I have no concept of time this week. 
> 
> Many thanks to [raynos](/users/raynos/) for her quick beta even though sick, to [Canth](/users/CannedCoelacanth/) for their discussions of DnD magic and lore, and to my unknowing sister for lending me her PHB. She hath no clue what she hath wroth.
> 
> Also, thanks? to my cat Bubby for collapsing on me every night I worked on this precisely at the moment I got into the writing groove. Congrats, boyo, you got to model for Frumpkin! Now - can you just wait 'til I finish this next bit?

Beau caught him just after he'd come into work, right as he was pouring the cup of coffee that would pull the world into much greater focus.

She didn't launch in with pleasantries - something he'd always liked about Beau - but immediately just got down to it: she had a field trial, and he'd always said he'd help her when the time came, so she was calling in that marker. She needed him to do some quote-unquote "magic shit" sometimes over the course of these dates and it was gonna be in the presence of _Dairon,_ her _Advisor_ , so could he show up and make her look good? ...please?

The "please" was unnecessary alongside her preferred directness, but that was Beau's time at the Institute kicking in. He understood that the Soul side of things did try to streamline its pupils into something a little more professional, and they'd done an admirable job with Beau.

And of course he'd agreed. He would've liked to actually say, "Yes, of course, I would be happy to join you for your little lark into the countryside to look at something ghastly and do 'magic shit' around it. It would be my pleasure to aid in your success, as you have so often aided in mine. In fact, as your powers of investigation are even better than mine, in this regard I am sure I will hardly be needed at all." But he hadn't had coffee yet, and he wasn't prone to being that loquacious at the best of times, so it'd come out more like, "Sure, sure, will certainly help, send email with information."

That'd gotten him a surprise squeeze and a hair ruffle and a promise to send “deets” before she ninja'd out of the room. He'd blinked at where she’d been for a full ten seconds before reaching up to scratch Frumpkin. "Get all that?" he'd asked the cat.

Frumpkin made a quiet "mrrr" sound that translated to Caleb as “maybe? mostly?”, and that was that. Well. His moods were tied to Caleb's, and Caleb - he - had still not put cream in his coffee, nor then put that coffee in him.

So he'd puttered into his office to fix that, and some hours later, gotten the email from Beau about the field trial. He'd added it to his calendar and then thought no more of it. This wasn't his first such Trial, and he'd brush up on the rules the night before anyways. 

He barely spared a thought as to whom Beau would pick as the third team member; she hadn't asked for recommendations, and it would likely come down to who was around for the case. He'd just hoped she'd lined up a couple prospects who wouldn't mind spending a random night in the field.

Thursday: A Cornfield at Sunset  
Beau's Trial

Caleb did take the time to check the teleport order for where he was going before he headed out, and so he showed up to the field in a sensible long overcoat, fingerless gloves, worn boots, and a purple scarf to go with his Frumpkin scarf. He even put hand warmers in his pockets, though that was more for Beau than for him; he tended to run warm even in the chilliest weather. Brand saw to that.

Beau and Dairon were wearing the usual Soul gear, adapted for the chill of the evening: an overcoat and boots similar to his, arms marked with shiny reflective patches so they'd stand out as things got darker. Their third, standing next to Beau, also stood out in her paint-splotched windbreaker, incandescent neon pink and blue tights, multi-colored midi skirt and relatively tame boots with bright blue-green laces. Her hair was tied up into a messy, curly bun that showed off the slight tilt to her ears, and she was obviously chewing gum. He wondered how long Dairon was going to allow that.

Then again, it was _Lavorre_ , so - the rules kind of went out the window there.

"Yo, Caleb," Beau called, raising a hand to beckon him over. "C'mere, I have the case brief."

He plodded over to them. "Evening, Frau Lionett, Frau Lavorre," he said, then inclined his head to Dairon, _"Inspektor._ " At Dairon's nod back, he asked, "Am I late? I thought we were to start at 6:00."

"No, you're on time," Beau replied, a sudden look of consternation on her face. "I - just -"

"Beau - I mean, uh, Ms. Beau - was worried we'd hit a snag or a line on the way over," Lavorre broke in, grinning at him. "So she made us leave suuuper early just in case. We even beat Dairon out here!"

"That they did," Dairon replied, voice neutral, though their eyes seemed a bit - fond. It was never easy to get a read on them, though; Beau had often bemoaned just that on those nights they went out for drinks. 

"Seems like a good habit to - uh. Continue," Caleb said, and Beau's expression smoothed out in a way that, at least, felt all right to him. Beau was rarely stolid, per se, but he had rarely seen her with a serious case of nerves. Then again, he'd also rarely seen her in her element, so - perhaps he should just get used to surprises out here in the field.

Like - that Beau knew Lavorre well enough to bring her on a field assignment.

The four of them all stood in a little circle a moment longer, eyes not quite looking at each other but also not on their job, before Beau gave a little start and said, "Right, I had a field brief for, uh, both of you. Since you'll be doing the SHAD work for this case"

"And this is an active field site," Dairon put in, "so we will need your keenest impressions of it."

Caleb nodded; Beau coming to ask him, who both specialized in the Arcane and had a familiar, had made him think they might be granted a fresh case. Lavorre, though, perked up in a way that made him suspect she hadn't known that.

"So two mornings ago, the local news here reported a cold fog seen in the fields overnight," Beau started, turning to wave her hand at the nearby field. "Fog isn't uncommon around here, but it's the wrong time of year for it, more a spring and summer thing than a fall thing. That got the call on our radar, but given when it was seen, we knew we couldn't get someone out before the sun destroyed a lot of the traces. Checked out those reports, though, and it wasn’t just fog in them, but shapes and light, plus the fog seemed to take some time to burn off in the morning. So they asked for a Soul team to come take a look at the site in the evening, and that's us." She drilled a look into both him and Lavorre. "Questions?"

Lavorre raised her hand, and Caleb had to suppress a smile. She had to have a good six months of field time by this point, but - some things didn’t change. Beau coughed into her hand before saying, "Yeah, Jester?"

"Why this area? It's pretty far from most towns - just a bunch of fields for miles, mostly. What's there to call a match here?" she asked, gesturing this way and that. Her nails, much as the rest of her outfit, were colored in scraps of neon, vibrant against her brown skin. 

Dairon lifted their chin in what Caleb thought of as an approving way, and Beau nodded, too. "I had the same thought," she said. "When you two are checking out the magic, keep an eye out for any concentrations that might suggest a circle or some kind of gating. Whatever came through here might have been brought through."

Caleb caught Dairon's eye then, and they shook their head. Very well; he would keep his mouth shut.

"So how do you want us positioned?" he asked instead.

Beau considered the field, then the two of them, then the field again, and Caleb turned to look at it, too. It had been harvested quite recently - perhaps no more than a week or so before, by the look of it - and then left fallow. His eye didn't catch much else, but then again from this distance, he really wouldn't, not unless he slipped into arcane sight.

"Dairon, take Jester and walk to that far corner edge,” Beau said, gesturing at the northeast side of the field. “I'll have Caleb start with me, on this side, and we'll walk the corners, see what they can see, see if we get a feel off anything." She let out a sigh. "Then it'll be time to start rooting through the haystack."

"Corn field," Jester put in.

"Proverbial plant matter," Beau replied, a grin softening her face for a moment, answered by a grin from Jester.

 _She really has such a gentle effect on those around her,_ he thought, keeping his face firm so he didn’t mirror their expressions. _It's a wonder._

"I approve," Dairon said. "Though Beau, walk with me a moment here?"

Beau nodded. "Of course, Detective," she said in that faintly respectful tone only Dairon seemed to bring out. As Dairon turned away, though, she made a quick face at Caleb, much like a sharp, soundless "AAAH!"

He offered her a covert thumbs up; Lavorre did, too, in a way much more bouncy and less covert. Beau made a face at both of them and then turned to catch up to Dairon.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Lavorre nudged Caleb hard in the arm with her shoulder. "Professor! I didn't know you knew Beau!"

He did his best not to make a face; Lavorre was six inches shorter than him and ten times stronger than he would ever be, and she didn’t always seem aware of that. "We have known each other for a little over a year now," he said. "I met her through Yasha, and as we both spend a lot of time at the library, we have made - ah, a little reading group together." 

"You mean, she's your friend?"

He slanted a look at her. "Where would that fall on your rubric of friendship, Lavorre? Given that you've said you and I are friends when all we've really done is bump into each other at Satellite." An interaction he enjoyed, especially as it had kept happening, but still not one he would've generally characterized as "friendship." 

Her eyes scrunched and she let out a "HMM" as she theatrically pondered the question, which gave him a chance to study her. Lavorre had brown skin, dark hair, and features that didn't seem to fit her face quite right: eyes a hair too big, nose a hair too button cute, mouth a hair too bow-shaped. It had the kind of quality he associated with magical disguise work, and he'd sometimes wondered exactly what Lavorre could be hiding, though of course, it was no business of his to ask. 

"I think that if you continually seek out the company of someone, and that someone welcomes your company, I think it really doesn't matter what else you're doing in the background, you're becoming friends," she said, words crisp and fingers steepled. "And if you spend a long time doing it - like, say, reading together for a year or, I dunno, a couple of months of standing in line for coffee together and sometimes even sitting together for a bit, then I think that you can definitely say, those people have become friends." She spread her hands and grinned at him. "You see?" 

He had to smile at that: brief, amused, and fond. "I will certainly consider it, Frau Lavorre," he said. "Also - given where we are and who we are with - perhaps it is time to drop the ‘Professor’?" Never “Professor” in truth, though Lavorre hadn't ever paid any attention to that. "I think Dairon would find it confusing. Unless you plan to take Arcane Studies 201..?"

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

"Didn't think so," he said. "So just - well, Widogast - should be fine."

She tilted her head and studied him for a moment, then grinned. "Hi, Caleb," she said, voice still cheery but with an undertone that curled around the base of his neck and made him shiver a little, even in the warmth of his skin.

"Umm - yes? Or - uh, that," he began, but before he could point out that this was more or less a professional kind of job, so maybe - not - on his given name - at least certainly _not_ like that - Dairon and Beau rejoined their group.

"C'mon, Caleb, we've got a section of field to look at," Beau said, voice back to its gruff "working" tones. "Jester, you're with Dairon."

Jester gave an excellent salute - snappy but unnecessary - then buried her hands in her pockets and made her way to Dairon. He and Beau watched as the two of them disappeared off into the darkening day, keeping easy pace with each other.

"Need a light?" he asked.

"I'd appreciate it."

He rolled his fingers in a quick wave, as if he played a series of keys on the air, and four lights lit up on his fingertips. He shooed two of them over to Beau to hang just above her shoulders. "That good?" he asked.

"Definitely," she replied, then sighed. "Both Dairon and Jes have better night vision than we do, y'know, but this seemed like a better way to break things apart."

"Oh, I concur," he said as they started walking deeper into the field. "You've paired experienced agents with inexperienced ones and split the magic users with it. That's a smart move for an _Inspektor_."

She gave a little snort. "Much as I'd like to claim credit for that train of thought, it was more 'Oh fuck, I forgot about Caleb's Jes thing when she told me she was looking for field hours'." A beat. "And then I thought about the thing you just said, to sort of set it in motion. So I got it from multiple angles, y'know."

He made an annoyed noise and hunched into his coat, lips pursing behind his collar. She cuffed him on the shoulder, a fairly light tap for her, and asked, "What? I'm not wrong."

He wished he could claim she was wrong about Lavorre, but as she’d heard him at his worst about it, he could not. Still - “I’m not some lad in secondary school here, Beauregard. I’m not in the field much, but I’ve done it before.” 

She gave him the eye. “I remember how ‘perturbed’ you were just having her in class, Caleb. And that was before - “

"And I take this Trial seriously," he pushed on. "I'm not going to screw it up because I was - fond - of one of my ex-students.”

"Caleb, you are _still_ fond,” she replied with an eyeroll. “And it’s more than just ‘fond’, too.”

He avoided her eyes. “Not that anyone here besides you would or will know that.” 

She threw her hands up in exasperation. "Look, I was just tryin’ to help you avoid an awkward situation, show that I’m not going to pull some Veth assholery with this,” she said. "But serves me right trying to be nice about this shit, doesn't it?"

Reproach washed through him immediately, but Beau had turned away, pace increasing as she headed towards their side of the field. He huddled down a little in his overcoat with a sigh; he and Beau got along reasonably well most times, but occasionally they just hit a patch where neither of them could say the right thing to each other.

_And of all the times to do this, now? At her Trial? Heh, you are truly -_

There was a brush of light against his mind, a flicker of gold in his vision: Brand, stirring against the thought. She had decided, long ago, to be internal comfort for him, much as Frumpkin was external comfort. He had never been quite sure what to make of it, but it had helped him not spiral so much into darkness, as if her fire were a balance on the scales of his mind. 

"Stay on task, Widogast," he murmured to himself - a favorite phrase of Beau's. And entirely applicable here. He was a senior agent on the field, even if it were only by a couple of years; he should focus on that and not on the way Lavorre infected him like cider bubbles. Because really, if Beau had pulled any of his handful of exes out onto this field, he could be easy, civil and cordial with them all; it was crushes, like the kind he’d fallen into with Lavorre, that for a multitude of reasons really unsettled him. But he had the experience to deal with it, so deal with it he would.

In a steadier frame of mind, he came up beside Beau. She had her eyes closed, her breathing soft and focused; she was tuning into the energy and environment around them. The way magic expressed itself through _Inspektors_ like Dairon and Beau was much less flashy than anything he or Lavorre had up their sleeve, but it allowed them to pick up and process a substantial amount of information. Beau had to open those sensory channels to the levels of the world around them, and then narrow her senses so that she wasn't overwhelmed with the information. And she was good at it; for all she complained about the training regimen or when her instructors had her _read_ , he also knew she had the gift for it.

 _It is a gifted field, today,_ he thought, looking across the way in the dimming light. Lavorre had lit up her side of the field with a single, bright light that shimmed an orange-ish white - much like a streetlight, he realized. For all that she didn't care much for arcane theory - really, his enjoyment of it rather made him the weird one - Lavorre had quite the creative intelligence; what she could do in practice more than made up for how she scored on paper tests. Dairon beside her was renowned on the Soul side of the Institute for their keenness of senses and mind; very little slipped past them. Beau here. And him -

Well. Everyone knew about him.

But before he could follow that thought-spiral down to a place where Brand would flick more feathered heat at him, Beau's eyes opened. "All right, Widogast," she said, voice her usual rough, don't-give-a-fuck tone, "show me what I need to look at."

He nodded, then raised his hand and traced an orange-tinted pattern in the air. It glowed hot for a second, and when he closed his eyes, the color remained steady in his mind, as if it pressed through his lids onto his eyes. He whispered a handful of syllables, notable only for the soft whistle that ended them, and then opened his eyes.

The same orange traces licked along the interior of the field, resolving into knots in this place or thinning out in that, all places where magic had left a strong imprint. Fey spells didn't last long in this plane's sunlight, but the imprint they left behind could take a few days of sun before fading out entirely. Not only were these fresh enough to match the case details, there were other, muted traces in among them.

"Whatever's been here has been here for a few days," he said. "Focused mostly - towards the interior of the field, some patches winding out towards the edges, but they've mostly kept to the remaining stalks."

Beau's brow furrowed. "How many days do you think? More than a week, less than?"

"Less than," he replied. "Not enough magic on the ground to suggest more than - four days, tops. Probably two or three, really."

"All right, I'll let Dairon know," she replied. "Can you find me a close patch so I can start my sweep?"

His eyes swept along the traces until he found a fairly bright spot, then led her over to it. "This work for you?" he asked, indicating the pulse of pumpkin orange with his foot.

She crouched down, touched the spot, and then yanked her hand back as if stung. "What?" he asked, stooping down beside her. 

"That spot’s fuckin’ _cold_ ," she said, reaching out to brush it again. He let his hand hover close to hers, just in case the magic snapped out at her for any reason; the air was, indeed, somehow cooler than expected, even for a fall night in the Midwest. But after a moment, it was clear that this was just the residue left, that there was no trap in it.

"Yeah, this'll do," she said.

"I'll go see if I can figure out what kind of magic this is," he said, standing and rubbing the cold out of his fingers. The chill held in his skin a fraction longer than it should have, and he filed that away in his head; there weren't a lot of Fey that worked in cold magic - not that tended to cross over at this time of year anyways - but there were some, and that could narrow his focus.

"Leave me a light?"

He smiled a fraction; Beau had ways of working in the dim light remaining, but asking him for one was an olive branch of sorts. He produced and flicked a couple of globes of orange-white to her, then took his own and started towards the far edge of the field. He wanted a better idea of what these traces looked like in full, and if he took the outer edge, he was less likely to accidentally start following Jester's magic.

The first sign that something was really wrong in the field was when he summoned Frumpkin, and the fey cat immediately burrowed into his jacket. He stretched diagonally across Caleb’s back from waist to shoulder in a way that only a magical cat could, and Caleb could feel his nose quivering and puffing warm air against the crook of his neck.

"It’s all right, kitten, it's all right," he murmured in soft German. "Just a field, just a scene. We're out here to help Beau - you remember her, of course, she gave you those chicken scraps. And Lavorre, too. You liked her before, and she didn’t even try to feed you."

As he spoke, he slowly brought his hand towards Frumpkin; yet, before Caleb could add pets to the comforting words, Frumpkin snuffed at his fingers and let out a hiss.

He pulled his hand back; it had been the one he'd hovered above the ground and caught the chill of the magic there. Tentatively, he brought it to his nose and sniffed it, but the only impression he got was faint cold, same as before.

Still, no reason to not take precautions; he pushed his sleeves up, took off his gloves, then held out his hands and lit them on fire. He held the fire for some twenty-three seconds, then shook them both out, leaving his hands a touch warmer with a hint of black under his nails. But that was the usual, normal, and a quick examination of the magically touched hand showed no difference.

He offered his hand to Frumpkin again, fingers curled up as if he were a new cat and not his familiar. "Better?" he asked.

Frumpkin sniffed at his fingers again, then butted his head against them, rubbing back and forth until Caleb rubbed his ears. He crept a little higher on Caleb's back, front paws and head hooking over Caleb's shoulder in a way "right out of Sailor Moon," or so he'd been told. Caleb scritched the top of his head in response, but Frumpkin crept no further out, and from what he could feel of the cat, he was tense.

And that was unusual. Frumpkin was a fey cat, bound to Caleb in an amicable pact; he normally treated these scenes with caution, but not with fear, and certainly not with this kind of on-guard readiness. The last time Caleb had been on a scene where Frumpkin had been anywhere near this kind of tense, they had - ended up ambushed.

"Shit," he breathed, and just as he began to move across the field towards Beau, she stood up and called, "Caleb, c'mere, I got something."

He kicked into a trot to join her, the light bobbing at his shoulder highlighting the near-dark enough for him to not fall flat on his face. "So do I, I'm afraid," he said as he slowed near her, panting cold air.

She gave him a half-smile. "Need to join me on a jog more often?"

"Perhaps, but we can debate that later," he said, catching his breath. "You had a thing?"

"Yours first."

He rolled with it; Beau often had her reasons, and in any case, it was her case. "Frumpkin is - unhappy to be here," he said, gesturing to the cat that had barely shifted during the jog. "He is tense and nervous. When I first summoned him, he immediately hid in my coat."

Beau nodded, biting at her lip. "Yeah, that checks out."

He raised his eyebrows at her. She stepped back and waved her hand at the ground.

The ground here was marred by a dip in the earth, a place where a tire had dug into a soft spot. Just off-center of that dip, surrounded by hardened ground, was a paw print.

He knelt down to examine it closer, and Frumpkin hissed in his ear; when he trailed his fingers near it, Frumpkin's claws nicked his skin. Still, he gave it another long once over before standing to confirm it with Beau.

"Fey dog," she said.

"Large fey dog."

"Yuuup," she drawled. "Too small for a blink dog, I think, but definitely one of their mastiff types." She squarely met his eyes. "Makes sense for Frumpkin to be on edge."

It certainly did; Caleb - for very good reason - did not like dogs.

Beau let out a hard sigh and looked away. "You know what I need to ask you to do," she said, eyes shifting back to his, "but I'll understand if Frumpkin can't." _And if_ you _can't,_ her eyes added.

At times, Beauregard was a much better friend than he deserved. Much of the time, really, were he completely honest about it. She had asked him here to do a job for her sake, but was still giving him an out anyways.

He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "I appreciate the kindness," he said, "but Frumpkin is a familiar. His moods reflect my own. And I think we can do this."

She nodded, half-smiling, almost hiding the look of relief in her eyes. She pulled out the folded communication pack all the members of the Soul carried. "I'll touch base with Dairon, let them know what we know, see if they've found out anything that can give us a better ID on this. Maybe get out of here quicker than we thought?"

"Maybe," he agreed. She gave another nod, then deliberately stepped away, giving him space to do what needed to be done.


	2. A Watch On Our Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So if there's something wrong, you have to help."
> 
> "Yes."
> 
> "And I have to come with you."
> 
> "Of course. It would be foolish otherwise."

Caleb stepped around the edge of the wheel rut in the ground, then pulled his jacket under his butt and sat, cross-legged, on the ground. "Come on out, Frumpkin-kitten," he breathed in German, scritching softly at his jacket just below Frumpkin's face. "We have our own work now. Our special kind of work." He took a long breath in through his nose, held it for four seconds, then exhaled it slowly for a count of seven. "And I know you don't want to get any closer, but for the sake of getting an ID and getting out of here, it's what we need to do."

Frumpkin made a disgruntled noise in his chest that spiraled up to a quiet, unhappy meow before cutting off into a series of reluctant chittering noises: this was dangerous, he liked none of it, but - he would do it. Caleb lovingly scratched the top of his head and crooned, "I know, old friend, I know. The quicker we do this - "

At that, Frumpkin was suddenly on his thigh, crouched in the hunting pose: forepaws down, back slightly arched, hindquarters tensed to move.

" _Danke_ ," Caleb murmured. He placed one hand flat on the ground and curled his fingers into the corn refuse and cold dirt around him; the other he set on Frumpkin's back, just behind his head, thumb brushing comfort across his fur.

 _Grounding point, transfer point,_ he thought as he took a breath in. _Open your mind, reach out, and - transfer._

His body breathed out, and Frumpkin's eyes - Caleb’s vision - opened.

Cats saw far better in low light than he did without magical augmentation, and Fey cats added extra arcane layers to their sight. The dark night showed in shades of grey under the white bloom of his globe of light, but more than that, he could see the residue of magical auras around him. These auras, despite a cat's inability to physically see most color, showed up in a variety of hues. For instance, he knew that if he looked back at himself, he would look like a grayscale photo outlined in quiet amber and flickering blue with a radiant, golden egg set like a gem in the center of his chest. Magic so often seemed to obey its own natural laws.

What he saw when he looked at the rut, though, were strands of rising darkness. Not sticky looking, but misty, like concentrated ink-in-water seeping up into the air from the land.

-Closer,- he murmured to Frumpkin. -I need to see it better.-

Frumpkin's ears laid back on his head, but he hopped off Caleb's knee and carefully stalked towards the dip. He stopped at the edge of the rut, the ground crackling with cold under his paws, and held there. -No further,- came the sense of a thought back. -Shadows cling.-

-You've done well,- Caleb replied, and Frumpkin's ears relaxed a bit. He crouched there at the edge and inched forward slightly, not enough to step down into the rut, but enough to get just a mite closer for Caleb.

The shadows slowly curled up from the paw print in a steady plume, giving them an almost liquid feeling, like the trail of smoke from a still cigarette. It was so strange to him how dark they were given that their other primary attribute seemed to be cold; ice powers usually showed up in slashes of white daggered with powder blues and pewter greys. Even abilities like Lavorre's cold resistance generally showed up blue at their darkest, and that color more a sea-storm blue than the deeper colors of twilight. These shadows had the appearance of the clothing from the Winter Court, not its magic; indeed, the shadow was so deep it seemed almost textured, like velvet or fine wool.

Yet the cold associated with it was so fierce that it had frozen the mud of the print, so much so that even a day in the sunlight hadn't completely thawed it. In fact -

He nudged Frumpkin away from the rut - it didn't take much - and towards a nearby patch of field remains. Frumpkin pawed at them for a moment - they felt less cold, but still far colder than they should be for a mid-Fall night prior to any snowfall - and then stuck his nose in and sniffed around the patch. It didn't smell like winter at all: none of the sharpness of ice and snow, or even the muted green-and-slush mixture of first frosts. It smelled - _cold_ , like the kind of chill one got opening an industrial freezer. Only - much, much crueler, like the chill from night falling during a winter storm, or the freezing wind off a storm-darkened lake.

-Not green Fey,- Frumpkin affirmed in thought.

The cat turned to pace back towards him, then stopped, hackles rising, a low growl vibrating in his throat. -Shadows,- came the hissed thought, as Caleb realized that little plumes of darkness had started to come up from the field around them. All over the field around them.

 _Mist!_ he thought, and broke the connection with Frumpkin.

There was a moment of disorientation as his senses were split between his own body and Frumpkin's, and in that moment, he could see a figure next to him. Which is why his body attempted to jump away even before he got his eyes fully open and saw Beau standing there, leaning down towards him.

"Shit, did you hear me?" she asked, extending a hand. "I thought you couldn't when you were sharing his mind."

"I can't," he replied, taking her hand and bracing himself; Beau always pulled as if he had fifty extra pounds to go with the six or so inches he had on her. "But I was coming back anyway."

"Good," Beau said, and yanked him up in the exact way he’d anticipated. "Because the fog is back."

He looked around them and grimaced; the fog had already obscured their side of the field from the other. "Did this just happen?"

"More or less," Beau said. "Right as Jester was telling Dairon that we weren't dealing with Green Fey."

"Frumpkin said the same thing." He called in his globes of light with a gesture, then reshaped them into two amber lights, one for Beau's shoulder and one for his. They lit up the growing fog around them with a strong, clarifying glow.

"Yeah, but what exactly does that mean?" Beau said, eyes narrowed. She rubbed her knuckle against her chin, then nodded towards the ground. "And is Frumpkin all right?"

Caleb looked down to see his cat puffed out to at least a half-size bigger than usual, his tail a giant brush that lashed at the ground around him. He made a cradle out of his arms and lightly tapped both undersides; Frumpkin immediately appeared in his embrace, tail still a puffed exclamation mark even as he burrowed into Caleb's overcoat. "Much as he does not like dogs, he does not like these shadows," he said. "They smell of deep cold and feel like - void. He does not want to be anywhere near them, or here."

Beau tapped her thumb against her lip. "Sounds like he wants to go home." She met his eyes. "I think that's a good idea."

He nodded. "Not to speak ill of any of the talents here, but this is enough for a survey team. I don't think any of us came prepared to face some sort of shadow mastiff."

Her eyes went wide, and she wagged her finger at him emphatically two, three times. He nearly took a step back when the thought looped in his head and he realized exactly what he'd said.

"Not green fey..." he started.

"...but fey from the Shadow Lands," Beau finished. "Shit, no wonder Frumpkin and Jes are spooked."

His stomach curdled, but he pushed the worry away; Lavorre was a fighter and could hold her own, not to mention having Dairon with her. She'd be fine.

_We'll all be fine once we get out of this damned field._

"I'll call this in so we can get going," Beau said. She paused, then reached out to stroke along Frumpkin's back. "Good job, buddy," she murmured, then stepped away, fishing out her phone again.

-Well done indeed, my friend,- he mentally commended. -You can go wait now.-

Frumpkin's tail de-puffed a little, and he leaned back to headbutt Caleb's jacket, letting out a soft purr. Caleb scritched his ears for a moment, and then Frumpkin was gone, back to his "Pokéball" as Beau called it. Or rather, the pocket demiplane that Caleb and Frumpkin could both use as a retreat, but really, that was a lot of words for the same concept.

"Hey Caleb," Beau called, "any chance you could boost this?"

He moved closer, and she held out the communication pack. It looked like an old Nokia flip phone and acted as both field walkie-talkie and long-range phone. The signal bars were currently flipping between one and two.

"The signal’s been shit ever since we got here, and I’d really like to make sure the Operations folks can hear us so we can get the hell out," she said.

"Electronics are really more Veth's forté than mine," he said, taking it and flipping it over. "But - she did show me a trick once. How far up do you think you can throw this thing?"

Beau squinted upwards. "I dunno - hundred feet? hundred n' fifty?" She shrugged. "Well above this field, let's say that."

"That should work," he said, and with his fingertip delicately traced out the runes for "hail" and "birch" on the battery case. He licked his thumb and smeared it across both runes; for a moment, they flashed a faint orange, and then went dull, though their outlines seemed to have been carved into the case. He handed it back. "Now throw it up in the air."

Beau looked at him, then at it, shrugged, leaned back, and launched it in the air. Both of them watched as it sailed upward - and then stopped, holding high in the sky.

"Looks more like two hundred feet," he said.

Beau shrugged. "I did play softball in college for a coupla semesters," she said. "So - why did I do that?"

"It acts like a beacon for OPS," he said. “Like we both waved a white flag and sounded red alert at the same time."

"Oh. Oh that’s - that’s pretty good," she said, then paused, head tilting. " 'Course, now I have no way to call Dairon and Jes, you realize that."

His mouth opened a hair, then closed. She snorted. "Didn't, did you?"

"No," he admitted. "But we have more ways of finding them in this field than just by phone, don't we?"

"Yeah. Also," she fished another comm pack out of her pocket, "I brought a spare phone, just in case."

Before he could protest the joke, she held up her hand and said, "But! The question is, should we go looking for them in this fog?" Her face took on a serious cast. "Not that I really care about the rules here, but how far outside of them would this land, Caleb?” 

Which was asking two questions at once, if he knew Beau: was this in the rules at all, and if it wasn’t, then “how badly am I gonna get fucked by it”? Because Beau wasn't about to leave either her mentor or her friend out there in the misty darkness. Not after seeing the size of that paw print on the ground.

And he was with her on that. They both had their own streak of iconoclasm; it was part of the reason they got along as well as they did.

"Dairon called this exercise active, so all the usual regulations apply," he said, voice distant as he mentally thumbed the rule book. "That usually means waiting for back-up to engage in anything. But - it's also a Trainee test. And in those cases - " He paused, a slight grin tilting up the corners of his mouth. "Any actual agent on the grounds is responsible for the safety of less senior agents."

"That so?"

"That is so."

"So if there's something wrong, you have to help."

"Yes."

"And I have to come with you."

"Of course. It would be foolish otherwise."

"All right." She turned away a hair and clicked the call button. "Beauregard to Dairon, Beauregard calling Dairon, do you copy? Over."

Her thumb relaxed on the call button, and he found himself leaning in closer. Nothing but static.

Beau took a breath, then tried again. "Trainee Beau to Dairon, Trainee Beauregard of the Soul to Detective Dairon. Do you copy? Over."

They both listened to the static. For a moment, there was a series of interruptions to it, as if a reply was almost making it through, but - nothing more.

"Sounds like we got shit," Beau said.

"Then we'd better go, hadn't we?"

She grinned at him, showing teeth. "You got any tricks I could borrow for this fog?"

"Your goggles are better than what I can do on the ground. If you want to go up and search from the sky," he gestured towards the phone in the air, "I can help with that."

Beau unstrapped her goggles from her belt and flicked them against her hand in a moment of thought. "Better to stay on the ground, I think," she said, "since neither Jes nor Dairon have a way of going airborne, and we don't know what visibility is going to be like from that vantage."

"True."

She slipped on her goggles, then slid a flat palm down over the reflective patches on her sleeves. The air shivered and rang like a bell as Beau’s wards went up, the patches now giving off a faint glow. She gave him a pointed look, and he found the leather thong in his coat and squeezed; a thin sheet of orange wrapped around him once and then was gone, signifying his own warding. 

"After you, _Inspektor_ ," he said, repositioning the amber globes to float before them. 

"Right," she said, then turned and plunged into the fog

  
  
They found Dairon first.

The amber lights did their job well enough that they didn't just trip over them, but it was a close thing. Beau spotted the figure on the ground before he did and pulled him up short; they exchanged glances as if to verify they both saw it, then moved in closer. The moment Beau recognized Dairon's shaved head on the ground, though, she pushed forward with a hiss. 

It was his turn to catch her arm and mouth "Careful"; shadow fey were known to use illusions to trick people. She glared at him a moment, then shook her arm free and nodded: message received. 

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a metal cylinder; a button press and some twisting later, she held a three foot staff. Weapon in hand, Beau edged forward a few inches and lightly tapped Dairon on the shoulder.

The staff met solid flesh - no illusion there. A moment later, Dairon rolled over and peered at them through narrowed eyes. 

Beau let out a relieved breath, then wiggled her fingers at Dairon. Dairon’s face didn’t change, but after a second, they raised a hand and wiggled their fingers back at both of them. 

He felt himself slump a little in relief, and Beau let out another long breath. Then, she turned back to Caleb. She made hooked shapes with her index fingers next to her head and gestured at the fog, mouthing something that looked a little like _Jester_ as she did. 

He shook his head at her; as much as he wanted to go looking for Lavorre, splitting off seemed like a very bad idea at the moment.

Her mouth flattened in annoyance, and it was obvious she wished she could talk. Very deliberately, she pointed to the patch on her sleeve, then at the ground; she held a moment, then pointed at him, made a whooshy gesture in the air, then stabbed a finger at the fog. It made her meaning much clearer: while she was helping Dairon, he needed to get on finding Lavorre.

The worry he'd tamped down earlier welled up again, a faint touch of panic on the edge of it, and a line of golden heat stirred within him. _Peace,_ came the murmur. _Follow the scent._

His brow furrowed; Brand was, in general, very literal. So -

Ah. Right.

Lavorre had been his student within the past year, and as such, he had helped her with magic workings in class. More than once, in fact, because her fey-touched magic didn’t always follow the “standard” patterns.. So he was quite familiar with not just the color and shape of it, but the impression it left on the world. Its - scent, not to put too fine a point on it.

He opened up that sense now and scanned through the layers and layers of chilled shadow and bottomless ocean trench around him, focus aided by a feather's brush of gold along his mind.

 _Cotton candy, slightly melted. A snowball, just packed. Hot cocoa, made out of a packet and hot water. C'mon Lavorre, where are -_

There. There. Like a beacon in his mind's eye: to the northwest and not too far away.

He held the image in his mind as he moved closer to Beau. She’d gotten Dairon back on their feet and was helping to steady them, their arm over her shoulder. He made the same crooked finger gesture next to his head that she had, then pointed in Lavorre’s direction.

She nodded, then gestured for him to help; from how Dairon leaned on Beau, it was clear something had injured their leg. He was too tall to throw Dairon’s arm over his shoulder, but he offered his arm, and they grabbed onto it to steady themself. As waves of cold shadow scent washed over him again and again, they began to pick their way through the fog in the direction of Lavorre and her scent.

_Cotton candy. Just packed snowball. Cheap hot cocoa. We'll be there in a minute, Lavorre, just stay there a minute more -_

It took them a little over three minutes. Dairon kept stumbling between them, knocking into one or the other, their breathing ragged at the edges with pain; given that, it seemed a stroke of luck - _right in line with the Soul’s abilities_ , he thought - that they were walking at all. 

Then Beau pulled them up short; at Caleb’s look, she pointed with her chin at the fog, then made the sign for “someone.” He nodded, then gestured in to himself and then out to the fog: should he go? 

Her eyebrows went up. She tilted her head towards Dairon, and then nodded very deliberately, communicating quicker than any sign both that _yes_ , he should go, and also _yes_ , he really didn’t need to ask. 

He nodded his acknowledgement of both those things, then carefully eased away from Dairon, making sure Beau had them steady before he moved on. He snuck as quietly as he could forward in the fog, amber light above and just ahead of him. 

A handful of yards in, a low voice hissed out, "Who is it? Who's there?"

"It's me,” he said, pitching his voice at a loud whisper. He called the amber light to rest in his hands and added, “I mean, it’s Caleb. May I approach?"

A beat. And then, in the same low hiss, “Slowly.” 

Caleb did as asked, and seventeen year-long seconds later, the fog before him cleared enough for him to see Lavorre. He couldn't help the relief on his face at the sight of her, and for a moment, the expression on her face changed, too, morphing from serious to something like a quiet delight -

And then a truck ran into his legs, dropping him to his ass. Something solid slammed into his shoulder, throwing him back to the ground and pinning him there with a fierce, unrelenting pressure. The air whooshed from his lungs, and all he was able to do when Lavorre stepped into view was wheeze.

Which was especially not good when the staff owner stuck their head into his field of view, too.

"Dairon?!" he gasped.

"Shadow fey are notorious for their trickery," they said, sneering down at him. "One of their pets ambushed us earlier, right after we lost contact with the other side of the field.” They turned the staff against his shoulder. “Prove yourself, Widogast."

"But you're - "

They leaned even more on their staff, and he winced and squirmed at the pressure on the joint. "Prove it!"

He snapped his fingers, and Frumpkin immediately materialized on his stomach. The cat stood up in alarm, looking between Lavorre and Dairon and chirping curiously.

Lavorre squinted. "Green fey," she pronounced. "That's his cat."

"So it is," Dairon said, and the pressure on his shoulder eased. "Where's Beauregard, Widogast?"

He coughed once, then managed, "I left her with you."

Dairon's eyes widened a hair, and then they were gone into the fog. 

" _Such! Pass Auf!_ " Caleb spat, and Frumpkin disappeared after them. 

Lavorre stuck her hand down into his view. “C’mon, Caleb, c’mon,” she said, voice tense, “they’re going to need us.” 

"Yes," Caleb croaked out, and as she hauled him to his feet, he reached for Brand.

A wave of heat washed through him, tip to toe, and the aches in his body eased. Lavorre, still holding his hand, gave him a surprised look; he shook his head, as if to say that he'd explain later. Or never, which was more in line with the actual answer, but that was not a discussion they were going to have right now.  
  
She shifted his hand from one to the other.. "So we don't get lost," she said, words clipped but, somehow, still light. Then, "You okay, Caleb?"  
  
"For now, yes," he said. "C'mon - we need to find them."  
  
Together, they hurried into the fog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> German used:  
>  _Danke_ \- "Thank you" 
> 
> _Mist!_ \- "Damn!" or "Hell!" And also a terrible pun. 
> 
> _Such! Pass auf!_ \- "Track! Guard Alert!" Taken from German commands for dog training. 
> 
> Fun facts: the runes Caleb uses are the runes that make up the Bluetooth symbol, 'cause that was too neat to pass up.
> 
>  _Coming as soon as I edit it_ :  
> A little ways from them, Frumpkin began to growl.
> 
> They both looked to see Frumpkin low to the ground, tail a spike of frenzied fur behind him. And just a few feet beyond him, a pair of stark, red eyes, ever so visible against the white of the fog.
> 
> Lavorre squeezed his hand; she saw it, too.
> 
> "Beauregard," he said, not looking away, "we're about to have company."


	3. But Shadows Have More to Say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Jester Lavorre, do you remember what we discussed?"
> 
> Jester's hand squeezed tighter on his, but her voice was unwavering as she said, "I do."
> 
> "Good. Keep to it."

They had walked for only a few moments - Lavorre in the lead and him guiding the light from behind - when sudden rumbling barks rippled through the fog. They were answered a moment later by a low, moaning growl, a sound edged about in hiss and lashing tails. At the same time, a fear and anger not his own washed over his mind, and his vision clouded over a moment in black and white and a deep, magical red. 

"Oh no, that's - "

"--Frumpkin!" he hissed, dashing forward. 

It was stupid, and he knew it. His parlor tricks of memory and direction were much better when his mind had landmarks to lean on, but all there was here was fog and field and his steady amber light. Even the occasional sounds in the fog were unreliable; a magical mist like this was made to throw them off the path. But the bond between familiar and arcanist went both ways, and he couldn’t ignore those feelings or the queasy knowledge that Frumpkin faced a dog and he wasn’t there - 

So when Lavorre literally pulled him to a halt, he was mostly grateful, though it didn’t stop him from giving her a panicked look. She moved in closer to him and whispered, “Do you know where you’re going? ‘Cause, uh, I don’t.”

He took a quick breath, and then a longer one, and nodded. “I can - Frumpkin,” he murmured back, looking away. “Just a - just a second.”

Caleb took a deeper breath, eyes narrowing, and focused on the feel of Frumpkin through their bond. The cat flared up in his mind in green and orange, and he couldn’t keep the grimace off his face as he realized he’d started pulling the both of them in the wrong direction. 

“This way,” he whispered to her, turning in the fog and heading towards the mental beacon of Frumpkin. 

_And Beau and Dairon_ , his mind filled in airily. _Just in case they might need your help, too. Or maybe a convenient target to -_

He didn't have time to finish the thought; one moment the fog only showed their light, and in the next another amber light bloomed in front of them, with a few more feet taking them to the scene. Beau was on the ground, staff before her with obvious teeth marks on it; steps away from her stood the shadow mastiff, its Dairon form having blended into a huge mass of void, reddened eyes and shimmering white fangs. Arrayed in front of it were Dairon - their staff also at the ready, their stance low and poised for combat - and Frumpkin, who was haloed in motes of green and orange, low to the ground and puffed to three times his normal size. All eyes in the clearing were locked on each other, and his and Lavorre’s arrival seemed to go unnoticed. 

Then Caleb shifted his light, moving it from just in front of them to above the scene and turning up the brightness a notch.

The Mastiff seemed to wince away from the light, head shaking as if trying to shield its eyes, dancing back a little on its paws.

Caleb took another step in and pressed on with the light, sending the globe further towards the Mastiff. 

"Wait - " Beau started, but that was all she managed before the Mastiff growled like an airplane turbine and leapt at him.

Time stretched and slowed as the shadow seemed to flicker and pulse towards him in the air. He felt Lavorre’s hand start to grip his just before he yanked it away from her, body instinctively curling inward to protect itself and present the smallest profile possible. She might have been able to pull him out of the way, but more likely was that he would’ve hauled her down with him, and he - he didn’t want to be dead weight on her, not at a time like this. 

The mass of void and teeth slammed into him, knocking him off his feet and through the air before he hit dirt on his left shoulder and skidded through corn refuse. For a second the wind was knocked out of him, and in that moment searing cold raked his along his right arm and shoulder as the shadow roared the depths of winter into his face. 

He gasped for air as magical heat pushed back, crimson orange filling his vision; fire pulsed across his front and into the creature as his ward flared to life.

There was another roar of pitch-dark cold, this one edged in pain, and icy claws dug into his shoulder. He groaned through clenched teeth, trying to pull his arm up to block his throat - and then the weight vanished. 

"Careful with that, Jes!"

Caleb blinked.

"Oops, sorry Beau!"

"You almost hit me with a big fuckin' dog!"

“I was sure you’d dodge it."

"Yeah, but that's not the point!"

Caleb shook his head slightly, trying to see if he'd completely rattled his brain. No - all seemed connected. He was actually hearing what he was hearing that - had Lavorre just -

Then her face appeared over his. "You okay, Caleb?" she asked, eyes soft with worry.

He gave a little nod and tried to raise his right hand to brush her off, only for his arm to _crack_ with frost and pain, causing him to roll over and inward with a groan. His arm felt coated in cold, his shoulder numb from where the beast's claws had dug in and raked downwards. He blinked and his right hand came into focus, stained with red frost.

"That's a no, then," Jester said, and then she was on the other side of him, kneeling to help him into a sitting position. He shivered, automatically leaning into her, and she adjusted her arm around her shoulder so he could. He -

He really shouldn't have been doing that.

But _fuck_ , he was so cold. Why was he _so cold_?

What was it Frumpkin had said? _Shadows cling._ With the bitter chill around and within his arm, he understood better his cat’s reluctance to touch any of those shadows. And if the only thing that cleared the frost was fire, then it was likely he was going to have to hurt himself to heal at all. But in order to do that, he needed to clear some of the chill from his mind first - and that meant Brand.

 _I have need of you again, if you do not mind,_ he murmured to himself, eyes closing, breathing shallow. 

There was a beat of nothing, and then gold filled the space behind his eyelids, followed by a heat that flared along his veins in seconds. He groaned softly as the wounds on his arm pulsed with cold before the heat enveloped it; it wasn't enough to seal them entirely, but it did push the chill feeling back from there and from his brain as well.

He opened his eyes just as Lavorre brushed cool fingers along his forehead. "Caleb? Caleb, you're burning up," she said, worry in her voice, dark eyes liquid with concern.

" _Ja_ ," he replied, voice thick. "It's fine, it's - needed." He tried to ease away from her, but she was on the side of his good arm, and she was rather - close - to him. "Help me up, please," he added quietly.

She frowned at him. "You should let me heal you first."

"In a moment," he replied, offering her the quietest smile he could, like a promise to back up his words. "I need to see what's going on."

"Or I could just tell you that," came Beau's voice.

He looked towards the sound of her voice as she walked up and dropped to an easy crouch on his injured side. Lavorre shifted him so that he could more easily look at her without needing to brace his injured arm against the ground, and he shot her a look of gratitude before focusing on Beau.

And Frumpkin, who appeared with Beau on the grass next to him. The cat sniffed him and made a frustrated chattering noise, as if he'd just spotted a pair of oblivious songbirds on the other side of a window.

"The shadow Mastiff didn't attack me until Dairon, the real Dairon, appeared," Beau said. "I think it was just trying to stall us until more of its buddies showed up from wherever they are. It had a go at me, but wasn't quick enough to get a piece. And Dairon - and Frumpkin here - helped to ward it off, too."

"So you are not hurt?" he asked.

"Got a bit of a scratch on my leg, that's all," she said, voice still casual. "Hurts a little, feels kinda cold, but I've got it, y’know, isolated. Shouldn't bother me too much."

Which meant that she'd rerouted the magic of her body to lock off anything there, leaving it unable to spread further than that initial cut. Or, to use her terminology, “dope _ki_ shit.” 

"And then you showed up and antagonized it with that light," she said. "They don't like light, but can rage out if it gets too close, remember?" She poked him lightly in the leg. “And you put you and Jes in more shadow than the rest of us.” 

He frowned. "No, I hadn't," he replied. "I was mostly going off its response there; my knowledge of these shadows is - unfortunately - a little sparser than I'd like right now."

"Most people's knowledge is," said Lavorre, voice tense. "I've studied them, and I didn't even recognize it when we first got out here until I saw the way the magic flowed. Shadow Fey are kinda naturally good at hiding themselves, y'know?"

"You got a point, Jes, that's true," Beau said. She shuffled around out of his view. "Think you can stand, _Professor_?"

He rolled his eyes at that. "I am not that decrepit or hurt, _Inspektor,_ so yes." He thought for a moment, then added, "I assume Dairon is after the dog?"

Beau snorted. "No, Dairon is keeping an eye out while we get your sorry ass up. I don't think they could've chased that dog down yet with how Jester just threw it." He could hear the unspoken _at my head_ tagged at the end there.

Then, "All right, Jes, you wanna stand up so we can get him up?"

Lavorre lightly brushed her head against his, saying quietly, "This'll hurt, but we'll be quick, Caleb. Promise."

Had he not felt like such shit, he probably would've blushed at that. As it was, his pulse thrummed in his ears for a loud, hot moment.

It was, predictably, awkward as hell to get him on his feet, even with four helping hands to make up for his injured one. Lavorre did most of the work of lifting him up, with Beauregard pushing here and there on his back as he scrambled to get his feet on the ground under himself. Especially as the change in position jostled his arm and shoulder, and he could feel the frost on his skin bite and burn.

But then he was on his feet and steady.

Beau patted him on the back. "See? Not so bad."

He slanted a look at her. "There is a reason I usually avoid field work, Beauregard. Everything seems to want a piece of me."

She eyed him for a moment, eyes skimming his bloodied right sleeve. "Yeah, you might want to invest in ‘Don't Eat Me’ cologne or something," she said. "Maybe try to smell or taste bad? I'm sure there’s some spell out there for that.”

"That'd be difficult, given how tasty Caleb is," Lavorre said. She had draped his arm over her shoulder without him really noticing, her cool fingers lightly covering his hand. At his glance, she gave him a very deliberate wink.

Now he did blush. "Um - "

"Mm?" Her face turned completely up to his, a sparkle in her eyes.

Beau made a gagging noise and turned away from them.

He wanted to stare, to melt into her dark eyes and a heat neither fire nor firebird; precisely the wrong thing to do, given the field they were on, but he had just been laid out twice in a matter of minutes. His head was - allowed - to be a bit rattled by all of this.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "For - helping me here."

She gave him a curious look. "Of course, Caleb," she said. "I wasn't going to let you that thing eat you."

"Oh, of course, yes," he said. "But I, uh, thank you for being so direct with it. It - "

He paused, brain futilely swimming for words to make it clear that he had done the magic thing and fucked up, and she had seen that and done the physical thing, and that was such a good, smart move on her part to -

A little ways from them, Frumpkin began to growl.

They both looked to see Frumpkin low to the ground, tail a spike of frenzied fur behind him. And just a few feet beyond him, a pair of stark, red eyes, ever so visible against the white of the fog.

Lavorre squeezed his hand; she saw it, too.

"Beauregard," he said, not looking away, "we're about to have company."

"Yeah," came Beau's voice back from the clearing ahead, "same over here."

He looked over to see Beau's hands come up in a defensive position as Dairon moved in closer to her, stance low. Some five feet beyond both of them, two sets of eyes shone in different, but no less intimidating, shades of red.

For a moment, there was no sound except Frumpkin's low growl and the slight shuffle of heavy feet on corn stalks.

Then, Dairon straightened and put their hand on Beau's shoulder. "You're with me," they said, "so follow close." They tucked the other hand behind their back and flashed the numbers 3 - 5 - 0 in sign before adding, "Jester Lavorre, do you remember what we discussed?"

Jester's hand squeezed tighter on his, but her voice was unwavering as she said, "I do."

"Good. Keep to it."

Frumpkin's growl hit a louder, harsher pitch.

Dairon signed THREE.

TWO.

ONE.

And then she and Beau were _gone_.

Caleb only had a moment to register the deep, chuffing bays from the Mastiffs tearing the air before there was a yank just behind his navel and he and Lavorre - were no longer in that field.

It was still night here, in this field, but there was barely a trace of fog on the ground or in the air. Caleb looked up as Lavorre made a small, unhappy noise, and for the first time this evening saw a clear sliver of moon and stars above them.

Lavorre sagged against him, and his attention quickly focused on her. "Are you all right?" he asked, good arm shifting on her to keep her steady.

She made another small disgruntled noise, then turned a little, head pressing against his chest as one hand got a grip on his coat. More of her hair had come undone from her bun and fallen across her face, and before he could consider the effect of it, he reached up with his injured hand to push it back. Chilled pain lapped at his mind from the movement, but in a distant way, and he knew Brand's power still held it at bay.

"Lavorre," he prodded, "are you all right?"

She raised her eyes. "I always forget that that spell makes me want to puke," she half-whispered. "It's not even that hard to do! It just - bleeeh, makes my stomach want to turn inside out."

He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "Take-off on those spells is often much easier than the landing," he said, rubbing her back lightly. He made the smallest gesture he could with his injured hand to conjure up another gentle light for them, this time to soothe more than to illuminate. "And both sides take some time to get used to.” 

"I haven't done it all that much, true," she said, hand snagging his injured one. "And I - " She paused a second, then carefully raised her hand and his. Even by his dim light and the light of the waning crescent above, the bits of frosted blood on it were visible.

"I never healed you," she said, turning the hand over gently as she gave him an annoyed look. "You were supposed to let me heal you."

He sighed. "I meant to, but we had no time," he said. "And we're not exactly in the clear yet, either. What did Dairon ask you to remember?"

She made an annoyed sound. "If I say, will you let me start to fix this?"

"Of course. How do you want me?"

The words were out of his mouth without a thought - and then she gave him a knowing look followed by an almost - _appraising_ glance, and the double meaning caught up. Were his body in more of a mood to blush, his face would have gone scarlet; as it was, he had to avert his eyes.

"Not in a field," she said, voice breezy, "but for this, I just need a touch." Both hands cupped his hand now. "Where is the worst of it, do you think?"

He took a quick breath through his nose, then made himself look back at her. "Right shoulder and a little lower than that," he said.

She wrinkled her nose and sucked at her teeth. "Right in the meat of the arm? Poor Caleb." She placed one hand gently on his clawed sleeve while the other curled around his bloody hand. "This should do, though."

She lowered her head, and the breeze stirred faintly around them: not with lightless chill, but just a calm shift of air. The breeze seemed to wrap his arm, and he felt his jaw clench as it picked at the cold claw marks and the light beneath that held them at bay. A moment later, though, the air warmed against his skin, gentle and comforting, and the pain in his arm eased.

"There," she breathed out. Her hand slipped down his sleeve to clasp his hand between hers. "Better?"

He nodded; the wounds had definitely closed, and the scattered aches across his body had eased. He relaxed his use of Brand's magic, though not all the way, as there was still a cold presence in the claw marks. "Yes, thank you," he said. "That feels much better."

She beamed at him, and he couldn't help a smile and a hand squeeze back. Funny how her magic was so bound in cold, when all she seemed to do as a person was radiate light.

But only for a moment. "And now, what did Dairon tell you?" he asked.

The expression on her face soured a touch. "Give a girl a minute," she said. “That was a chunk of magic in a real short time.” 

"And very well done, too," he said, giving her hand another little squeeze. To his surprise, her eyes widened and she flushed, looking away from him. He gently pulled his hand free at that. "But let me remind you, Lavorre, we're still - in a field."

She huffed out a breath and nodded, not quite looking at him. "Oh, I know it," she said, taking a step back and wrapping her arms around herself. "I can kinda feel them now, too? The Shadow Fey. Even though they're more - that way." She flapped her hand towards the southeast.

He turned in that direction and sucked in a breath; the fog was there, a wall of mist creeping towards them. They still had some field as a barrier, but it would not take long for it to envelop them once again.

"Maybe we should - go," he said, pointing over his shoulder.

But Lavorre shook her head. "No - no, we don't need to."

He frowned at her as she turned to face him. "Something Dairon said," she said. "About you. About how you have a 'safe place', so it didn't matter if any of us ended up with you, because you could get us out."

"A safe - "

It came to him then, and for a brief moment he wanted to put his face in his hands. _Trust the Soul to remember more about my abilities than I do, at times,_ he grumbled to himself.

 _Perhaps if you bled less,_ his mind cooed back at him, and there was a swish of feathers to go with it.

"Caleb?"

He shook his head a little to clear his mental fog, then said, " _Ja, ja_ \- I know what they mean." He looked back at the fog, which seemed to have crept a little closer. "Still, we should move a little further away. This will take a little time to set up."

She nodded, hints of concern still playing over her face, and when she offered him her hand, he took it. After all, she saw better in the dark than he did.

Quick as they could, they made their way across the field. The night was still around them, quiet in a way that made all his senses sharpen in reflex. He'd spent enough time in this kind of country to know that while light might be scarce at night, noise was not; nature filled the sound space where humanity was silent. And they weren't all that far off from several roads at that.

No, it was literally "too quiet" out here, enough that he felt like he could hear the fog creeping up on them.

“So what did Dairon tell you?” he asked, feeling a need to fill that silence. 

Lavorre huffed a laugh. “Aside from the stuff about you having a safe place?”

“Mm, yes. They - it seemed that you two had a plan in advance for getting away,” he said. “Based on what they said to you and Beauregard both.” 

“Oh right, that,” she said absently. Then, she cleared her throat and - in a precise imitation of Dairon’s usual clipped alto tones - said, “Jester Lavorre, listen to me. This mission, it’s gone wrong. Higgley-piggedly. Tits up.”

He gave her a disbelieving look; without looking back, she continued, “I know your boon of magic includes a short range jump, does it not?” Without missing a beat, her usual voice chimed in, “Why, yes it does. Up to five hundred yards!” And then as Dairon again, “We do not know enough to successfully fight these Shadow Fey, but I believe we can successfully flee. On my signal, take whomever is nearest to you and make that jump; I will get the other out.”

A moment’s pause, and then Lavorre resumed her normal voice to say, “And then they told me about your safety whatever and how the Soul has a thing where they can get away real fast, so I didn’t have to worry about them if it came to that, either. And just as they were finishing that is when the first dog showed up and nipped ‘em, and it wasn’t too long after that that you showed up, and! Now we’re here, in another field.” She huffed out a breath. “And here I thought this was going to be another boring fieldwork assignment.” 

“Ah, so did I,” he sighed. “Leave it to Beauregard to end up having the most exciting Trial I’ve heard of in _ages_.” 

They hit a broad tire track in the field then, a span of just dirt, and he came up short. "This'll do," he said.

Lavorre gave him a quick overall glance, then let his hand go. "What can I do?" she asked.

"Watch my back. Please."

That got him a brief, brilliant grin. "My pleasure, Caleb."

She'd healed him enough that he was fine to blush again, and based on her little laugh, she saw it. He deliberately turned away from her, mentally scolding himself in German as he dug in the pockets of his coat. Where had he put it? There was no way he hadn't brought it - it was standard gear - but it’d been some time since he’d needed it, and he could’ve left it in his pack instead. If that were the case - 

He dug into his inner pocket, and there it was: the stiff fiber pocket he needed. "Ha!" he cried out, pulling it out. "There we go."

He knelt on the ground and tore it open to shake out the pieces within: three gnarled twigs and a square of dark, heavy leather.

"What's that?" Lavorre asked.

"It is what Dairon was referring to," he replied, unfolding the square to reveal the thin loops on the sides. He began to thread one of the longer twigs through them. "A way to a safe place."

"You carry that in your _coat_?"

"Heh, yes. Most of my type have something similar. It is, uh, something that we often come to naturally in the course of our studies." He finished the one twig and started on the second. "And with some ease for me, since I have - Frumpkin."

Who was hopefully still safeguarding Beau and Dairon, wherever they were, and not something he should worry about for now. Frumpkin knew how to get home without Caleb calling him there; when things were safe, he'd do just that. He'd done it before. He'd be fine.

They'd all be fine. He and Beau had sent up that signal to Operations to bring them to the field, and she'd let Dairon know that. And he and Jester could get out of here once he got this doorway up -

He wished the tips of his fingers didn't feel so cold; it would make the threading process go faster.

He felt Lavorre shift closer to him. "What are you _doing_ , Caleb?" she asked.

"Do you remember what it's said about where familiars go when they're dismissed?" he asked, twisting the twig to try to wiggle it through the middle loop on the side. It was always the damn middle loop, too, no matter how many times he stretched it off the field.

"Mm, yeah - some kind of 'demiplane'. Like, one of the shallow pockets of space between here and the actual Fey realms." A beat. "Something something borders are fluid in planar space something something reefs and riverbeds something something?"

He paused at that, unable to help a slip of a grin. "Hmm."

"What?"

He twisted and turned just right and got the twig through the center loop. "I think that's the exact answer you put on your test."

“Ha! Yeah, probably.” 

He continued, "And is, in essence, correct. We represent the planes with solid borders, but it is more like they wash against each other, leaving the planar borders like a reef or an estuary of mixed and fragmented places. This churn in reality is responsible for - well, you know this."

" 'Magic and meshing', yes. It's only the reason for the Institute's existence in the first place _and_ in every mission statement they had us memorize. I think they would put it on our paychecks if they could." There was a fond humor in her voice.

"I think you right in that," he said, sliding the twig through the third loop. He pulled the leather taut between the two twigs once, twice, thrice, and then set to planting it in the ground.

"And this relates to what you're doing how?"

"It was noticed by those of my sort - "

"And which sort is that?"

"Arcane nerds," he said without pause.

She giggled at that. "Okay, just checking. Go on."

He paused to test the twigs where they'd been stuck in the ground; neither gave much, which was what he needed. He backed up on his knees and then looked behind to ask, "How's the fog, Lavorre?"

She turned and peered into the darkness. "Getting - we're getting into the uncomfortably close territory now, Caleb."

He shivered suddenly, a shudder from head to foot. _No time for that,_ he thought, picking up the third twig.

"And - you still haven't finished explaining this."

"Us arcane nerds figured out that whatever demiplane a familiar went to, it remained relatively stable, as if reinforced by their presence in the mesh of planes," he said. He spun the third twig once, twice, thrice, and then carefully placed it across the top of the two other twigs - one side down and steady, then the other.

"And you know us," he said, a grim humor in his voice, "once we figure out something like that, it doesn't take long for us to figure out how to do it for ourselves." He twisted the twig twice forward, then once back, then scooted up to a stand. "And with that, Frau Lavorre, you and I should take a few steps back."

She gave him a puzzled look, but moved with him, taking exaggerated steps alongside his quick ones. A few yards back, he stopped, snagging her jacket sleeve to keep her from going too far. "That should be fine."

"But - what is it - " She looked back to the lintel on the ground, then to him. "What did you make?"

"Oh," he said, raising his hand, "just a pocket."

He snapped his left hand from palm down to palm up, fingers flicking out to full extension, and muttered a quiet string of arcane syllables. Streamers of orange and gold flecked blue wound their way around the tiny lintel, flashing in sheets over the leather covering in-between.

A breeze stirred the ground around them, and it was warm as a bath against his skin.

Lavorre, carefully, took his other hand in hers.

One moment, the tiny lintel was dark and still; the next, a door stood before them, a wooden door, grey with a brass door knob in an off-white door frame. It had an old-fashioned knocker in the center made of stylized feathers in gold.

At their feet, the first fingers of chill fog slid around them, and Caleb felt a brief cold burst crackle in his shoulder, as if phantom claws swept over the wound.

"We should go," Lavorre said, squeezing his hand.

"Y-yes," he managed, and swept forward to open the door with a click, pushing it inward. "After you," he gestured.

Lavorre tilted her head as if she wanted to peek around the edge, then nodded and went through. She didn't let go of his hand, though, and so Caleb was gently spun about as she pulled him through after her.

He caught a glimpse of the bulk of the fog rolling in after them. At its front, barely lit by his remaining amber light, red glints rolled above clawed shadows.

He extinguished the light and shut the door firmly behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Coming as soon as I edit it_ : 
> 
> At first, he didn't see anything; his fingers and palm looked normal. Then, just on a hunch, he reached up and pressed his thumb into his palm. The skin flushed darker red, as it should have, but when he released the pressure, the white that he should've seen was instead briefly purple in color.
> 
> He'd thought it was only in his shoulder and his upper arm. He should've realized from the frost touch on his fingers that it had spread beyond that.


	4. A Tuck in Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're just - full of wonders this evening, aren't you, Caleb?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome...to Part Two. (Of three, because I cannot resist an epilogue.)
> 
> Hearty and forever thanks to [raynos](/users/raynos/) for awesome beta and writing cheerleading, and to [Canth](/users/CannedCoelacanth/) for their discussions of DnD minutiae. Both have very patiently listened to me huff and fret over details of this story and world, and I could not have done it without yall. 
> 
> Thanks as well to Dora the Cat, who turned Frumpkin from a scarf into a percher.

The moment Caleb pulled the door shut, all was darkness. Lavorre’s hand clamped down on his.

Right - that was part of the transition. " _Licht an_ ," he called, and a soft light swelled to fill the space. He let it bloom and settle before turning to Lavorre. "Welcome to Frumpkin's - and sometimes my - secret home."

Lavorre shifted in place with a wide-eyed stare, taking in the room. He found himself feeling a little smug about that; it might not be a tower like in all the classic wizard stories, but his cabin was well-made, trim and snug. He had put a good deal of effort into making it a place of refuge for him and Frumpkin, especially given how - when - who had started it.

"When you said a pocket, I didn't think you meant a house," Lavorre said, her eyes still gliding back and forth over the walls. She paused, then turned and asked, "Is it a full house?"

"Of a sort," he said. "As much of one as I could make in the space." He ducked his head a little. "I based it off a cabin I spent some time in as a boy, though, uh, expanded a little. Modernized."

"It's beautiful, Caleb," she said, giving his hand a much gentler squeeze. A grin curled across her features, and she added, "And I'm sure it's the nicest cat house at the Institute, too."

He shook his head with a little smile. "Oh, there are better out there, certainly," he said. "Impressive towers, bigger inside than out, surrounded by mazes of dream plants, all under eternally crepuscular skies."

"Sounds like they're compensating for something," she said airily, looking around the room again. "Y'know, 'check out my big tower, it definitely makes up for my terrible personality and unflattering fashion sense'." She giggled. "And my tiny dick."

"I - uh, could not say if that were the case," he replied, "but it is true that those who study the mysteries of the arcane often look - well, ill-fitted."

"Right? Like, you have such big brains, totally able to pick apart the mysteries of the planes and all that - would it really be so hard to find a nice neutral and stick with it?"

He couldn't help his grin at that. "Speaking as one prone to fits of research, I can honestly say that 'neutral' at those times no longer has meaning in the fashion sense."

She dropped his hand and turned to face him entirely, index finger up by her face as if to punctuate the point. "And yet, you've managed to put together such a nice ensemble of cardigans and - coats - "

Her voice dropped away as her eyes went wide, and she took a steadying breath.

He followed her eyes to the ripped shoulder and sleeve of his coat. Here in the light, he could actually see how the shadow mastiff had shredded his sleeve when it had torn into him. Lavorre saw better in the dark than he did, but apparently it had a different look in the light. 

"I think it looks worse than it is, Lavorre," he said, voice quiet. "But I should go clean up."

She reached up as if to touch it, but her hands just hovered over the material. "Are you - are you sure of that, Caleb?" Her eyes flicked to his and held, steady and firm. "Maybe I should look it over, just in case."

"You've already healed the worst of it," he replied, voice just as steady. "I just want to go wash up, see if any of this," he indicated his coat, "is salvageable." His face softened. "There has been a lot of, uh, strangeness in a very short time, but we are safe now. You can relax here and now, Jester. You really can."

Her eyes closed for a moment, and she took another steadying breath. "You'll let me know if I need to look at it, right?" she asked. "If there's anything else I need to heal. Right?"

"Of course."

Another breath, and then she nodded, eyes coming open. "All right, then - I’ll guess I’ll leave you to it." Her face visibly shifted to a brighter look, much like the ones she usually wore. "Though if this place has two bathrooms, that would be amazing."

"Ah - yes, of course. Pardon, I’ve been a bad host," he said, then led her over to the left side of the room. Reaching up, he slid his fingers down a natural looking stain in the wood; there was a soft click, and a section of the wood pushed out. He pulled it open enough for her to see the hallway behind it.

"Second door on the left," he said. "And please, make yourself at home."

She shook her head slightly, a small but real grin on her face."You're just - full of wonders this evening, aren't you, Caleb?" she said.

She stepped into the hallway, then paused before he could push the door closed behind her, head peeking around the side. "I’m serious, Caleb,” she said, voice firm, eyes narrow, “anything I can do, I will.”

He met her look for as long as he could, then nodded, breaking eye contact. “Of course, Lavorre,” he said, “anything you can.”

She watched him a moment longer, then slipped back into the hallway. He waited until she'd found the right room, then pushed the panel in until it locked at the bottom; that way, when she pushed on it from her side, it would open right up.

He let out a sigh and reached up to touch his shoulder, where it felt as if a cool breeze rippled under his skin. She had been holding his right hand, and while he normally found her skin cool to the touch, that hadn’t been his experience this time.

"I don't know if this is something either of us 'can'," he murmured to himself. "But - we shall see, _ja_?"

And with that, he turned to make his way to his personal section of the cabin. 

When he came back downstairs, he found Lavorre curled up beneath a pile of blankets in what he thought of as "Frumpkin's chair." For a moment, he thought she'd fallen asleep completely, but as he attempted to quietly raise the staircase, she asked, "Is everything in your house hidden behind something?"

He shook his head. "Ah, _nein_. Just many things." He gave the stairs a final push into the ceiling, then caught the cord that hung from the edge. He latched the stairs in place with a pull towards the wall, then locked them up there with a hard tug down towards the ground. 

He turned to find Lavorre had rearranged herself so a bit more of her was peeking out above the blankets. She had obviously washed her face and redone her hair, pulling it into two loose buns on the top of her head. For a moment in looking at her, he had the impression of a different sort of shape to her face, sketched in green and blue shadows and lit by purple eyes.

He blinked a few times; it vanished. 

"Why hide everything?" she asked, fingers picking at the blanket edge. "Seems inconvenient."

He smiled and shook his head a little. "At times, it - certainly can be," he replied. "But I was fond, very fond, of hidden room mysteries as a child. When I would play with logs or blocks, I would always create secret rooms with clever access points. So when I added onto this space," he gestured around, "I thought, why -not do the same?"

She gave him a sweet smile edged in weariness. "That sounds so very like you, Caleb." She leaned her head against the pillowed edge of the chair and closed her eyes. "Does Frumpkin have to go through secret doors, too?"

He chuckled. "Frumpkin requested his own kind of secret door."

Her eyes cracked open and peered at him. "Really?"

"Oh, of course. He might be my familiar, but he's also Green Fey. If he has the chance to randomly appear in places and spook people, he will take it."

She closed her eyes again. "I knew I liked him for a reason."

"Ah, I hoped you did - that's his chair you're in."

She snorted very softly, a sound that made him smile despite himself. "Oh, I know - his fur was all over it." She wriggled a little, then reached up to tap her nose. "But that's okay, I know the great secret magic for getting rid of cat hair."

Gingerly, he crossed his arms over his chest. Lavorre's healing had closed the gashes in his arm and shoulder, but the marks had been such a livid purple that he'd slathered them in ointment and put a bandage over them anyways before finding a new shirt and cardigan to cover them up. "And what would that be?" he asked.

She made an exaggerated arcane sigil in the air, intoning, "Duct tape and lint rollers."

That made him honestly laugh, and her face took on a smug cast as she grinned back.

"Well, as long as you're comfortable, Lavorre," he said, moving towards the kitchenette section of the room. "We're going to be here a while."

"Really? How long?"

"Oh, eight hours, give or take." Now where had he put the water jug? Moving between planes always futzed with his memory a bit; it was now pointing out three possibilities, rather than the usual one.

"Mm, that's - wait, EIGHT?!"

He looked up from the cabinets to find Lavorre staring at him from the chair, all bleariness gone from her wide eyes. "Did you say eight?" she asked.

He nodded slowly. "It's standard, usually, when a pocket is put in play," he said.

"That's - that's - " She turned away and sagged back into the chair. "That's the whole rest of the night, Caleb."

"It is," he agreed, poking through the cabinets again. "But Dairon apparently felt it was better for the two of us to come here than try to deal with that field any longer."

"Yeah," she said softly. "I guess." A beat, and then she asked, voice quieter, "You think they're okay? That they got away, too?"

"I do," he said, voice matching her quiet tone. "Beau is extremely talented, no matter her occasional lack of confidence, and Dairon has the credentials and respect to match. I think they will be fine."

"Really?" Her voice barely rose.

He stopped his poking through the cabinets to turn towards her. "Really," he said, filling his voice with calm and confidence. "Beau and I set up a beacon to call in help before we went to find you. Dairon seemed to have a plan in mind for getting everyone out alive. I am sure they are - and will be - fine."

She propped her head on the side of the chair to look at him, and despite her tired posture, her eyes were keen. He, for once, met and held them with ease, because he did believe it, and Lavorre could draw her confidence entirely from that if she needed to.

She let out a breath and relaxed again, body curling back into the chair. "Thank you, Caleb," she murmured.

Emotions swam to the surface in him as his eyes stayed locked on her dark head: relief and wonder and hope and - what he kept calling fondness. A strong wave of good feeling that, for once, he'd been able to offer a little light back to her.

_More than just ‘fond’, isn’t it, Caleb?_

He shook his head at the memory of Beau's voice, and it broke the momentary reverie. "Besides," he said, turning back to his cabinets, "they have Frumpkin with them as well for extra protection."

"I wondered why he wasn't here with us."

"I did, too, for a moment," he admitted. "But his last commands were to follow and protect Beau, so - a-ha!" He pulled the jug from where it had been tucked away and set it on the counter. "There. Now I can make chai."

"You needed something to do that?"

"Yes, this jug." He murmured the key word to it, and it began to fill with water. "I need it for potable water."

A beat. "But - you have running water here."

"Yes, I do, but - mm." He half-smiled to himself. "There is a short explanation, which is that it's best not to ingest too much from this plane, and then there is a much longer and somewhat duller explanation that gives a full reasoning as to why. I will spare you that one."

"Mm."

He busied himself pouring the water from the jug into a kettle, which he placed on the - mostly decorative - stove; then he got down the chai mix and a cup for himself. He paused and asked, "Would you also like some chai, Lavorre? Or some other tea? Or perhaps, just plain water? I don’t have much, but - “

"Chai sounds nice," she replied, voice tired but not yet muzzy with sleep. "And, uh, Caleb?"

"Yes?"

"It's - it's nice to hear voices right now. And I - I like hearing you talk about arcane stuff. So if you don't mind giving me that long explanation, I'll totally - totally listen to it right now."

He pulled another cup down on autopilot, mind racing a mile-a-minute away from him. Lavorre had specifically asked for this assignment to get more fieldwork time, as she'd said to him. He wondered if this were her first time on a mission that'd gone belly up in this sort of way. After all, he had some years experience on her, and this night had still been - unusual. 

_There must be so much going through her mind that she wants to quiet,_ he thought as he set up the cups and their packets, _if she's willing to listen to me lecture on matters of planar physics and arcane transmutation._

He emptied the packets into their cups.

_Well. Best not disappoint her then._

"Talk, I can do that, Lavorre," he said, voice quiet. "Let me finish making this tea, and I promise - I will bore you senseless."

She giggled softly. "Your lectures weren't _that_ bad."

"No, those were not," he said, turning to the kettle. "But that's because I have taught that class a few times and had good feedback about how to make it less awful." He set his hands above and about the kettle, not touching its surface, and gently coaxed it to a hotter temperature. He always did this when making beverages, even if they were the instant mix he was using now, just to keep in practice for when he used the good stuff. 

Another giggle from Lavorre. "Did you listen to that feedback, Caleb?"

A chill touch skimmed down the line of his arm as a knot of ice twisted against his shoulder, a moment of sharp, pulsing cold.

He gasped softly, involuntarily, but maintained his concentration on the kettle until the water inside began to boil. The cold seemed to press in as he did so, like the tip of a flathead screwdriver slowly coring its way into his shoulder.

"I - uh, yes. What, um, good is feedback if - if you don't pay attention to it?" he replied. He held the heat a moment longer, then pulled his hands away, cutting the magic off; the moment he did, the press of cold against his shoulder ceased, leaving only that faint hint of chill in his upper arm and a frostbitten feel to his fingers.

"Not that I could do necessarily anything about some of it," he added as he pulled the kettle off the stove.

"Like what?"

"Oh, well, the accent I cannot help, even with arcane skills," he said as he poured out the water into the cups. "As it turns out, even magic cannot make me less terrible at another accent. Some students find my demeanor off-putting, especially in my early days when there were still, ah, various rumors about me." He passed his hand over the cups to stir up their contents, and chill nibbled at his fingers again.

That pulled her up in her seat, and as he came around with her cup and his, she sat forward in the chair. "What kind of rumors would they tell about you, Caleb?" she asked in a lilting way as he put the cups down on the table.

"Oh, the usual old straws," he replied, keeping his voice as light as he could as he pushed her cup closer to her. "My accent is very obviously German, so I must be a villain of some sort, some evil man bent on twisting students to his whim." He gave a little snort at that. "Those who took my class hoping for such things were swiftly disappointed. Or - they’d say I was young for the position, unexpected in it, so I must truly be a Fey in disguise who had beguiled his way into the Institute to find students worthy of greater deceits." He gave her a little wink at that, and she grinned back at him. "That one was not so bad. Or - " he toyed with the cup, its heat quite soothing against his chilled fingers, " - just that I was an unknown quantity. Something - odd, magically speaking. Something dangerous."

Which had been more accurate than those students had known, and he still wondered which of his colleagues had started that rumor. Or - if others - had spread such information on campus. It hadn't amounted to much in the long run, but for a rumor, it’d had a longer tail than most.

"So nothing really, like, indecent," she said, sounding disappointed. "No great romantic backstory, no torrid affairs or anything."

"Well - not when I started, Lavorre. It takes a couple of years for that kind of thing to get going."

"Oh, right, of course," she said, waggling her eyebrows at him. She hooked a finger in the handle of the cup to bring it closer. "Though it's hard to picture you showing up and people thinkin’ - ow!" She pulled her other hand away from where she'd grabbed the cup.

He frowned as she shook out her fingers. "Too hot?" he asked.

"Yeah!" she said, blowing on her fingers and shaking them out again. "I don't get how you're holding that already. Do you just not feel heat?"

"I do," he said, eyes sliding away from her, "I just don't - mind it, I guess." Which was only a partial lie; he did have some innate heat resistance, thanks to Brand. It just wasn't why he was able to hold the cup now.

His brow furrowed, and the trace of a frown on his face deepened. That - wasn't right, was it? The cup should still register as far too hot against his skin, but rather than burn his fingers, it felt like his chilled hands were drinking in the heat, absorbing it until it was gentle against his skin. And that - that was -

"Caleb? You okay?"

"A moment, Lavorre," he muttered. He checked the back of his hand to see if he could spot anything, then turned it inward so he could look at his fingertips.

At first, he didn't see anything; his fingers and palm looked normal. Then, just on a hunch, he reached up and pressed his thumb into his palm. The skin flushed darker red, as it should have, but when he released the pressure, the white that he should've seen instead showed purple in color. 

He'd thought it was only in his shoulder and his upper arm. He should've realized from the frost touch on his fingers that it had spread beyond that.

" _Scheisse_ ," he murmured.

It was at that point that Frumpkin appeared in the middle of the coffee table.

For a moment, all was still between them: Lavorre and him staring at the cat as Frumpkin first looked to her, then to him, then back to her. He had a disheveled, somewhat frantic look to him, with bits of corn and dirt in fur unevenly puffed out about his body; but other than that, seemed uninjured. 

"Frumpkin!" Lavorre exclaimed. "You're back!"

"They must have sent him home," Caleb said, then switched into German. "Is that right, Kitten? Are Beau and Dairon all right? Did they send you home?"

As he spoke, he reached out to ruffle the cat's fur - and Frumpkin shrank back from him. Caleb stilled, holding his hand in the air between them, and after a moment Frumpkin leaned forward to delicately sniff at Caleb's fingers. A moment, two moments - and then his ears laid back, and he gave a rough snort and moved away from Caleb's hand.

 _Well, that settles that,_ Caleb thought as the cat paused closer to Lavorre to sit and lick his paw. _He could smell it before in the field, and now he smells it on me. I'm going to have to fix this soon._

And he wasn't sure what would happen when he had to do that.

"Frumpkin! What are you doing?" Lavorre asked, leaning over to pet his head. Frumpkin pushed up, rubbing his head enthusiastically against her fingers and palm, a full purr rumbling in his chest. "Is this a good sign?" she asked, eyes flicking to him. "Does this mean everyone is safe?"

"It is - likely," he said, nervously rolling the fingers of his affected hand. Now that he paid attention to it, he could feel the shadow under his skin, a shifting, coolness. “If - if he still had Beau to look after, uh, he likely would not have come.”

"Aww, you're such a good boy to come back and bring us this news," Lavorre crooned, leaning down closer to Frumpkin's face.

"Oh, you may want to - "

His warning came too late; there was a fuzz of green around Frumpkin, and then he appeared in her lap. Lavorre gave a little squeak and leaned back, and Frumpkin immediately clambered up her body, forepaws resting just below her collarbone. 

"Aww Frumpkin!" Lavorre reached up to scritch his head, and he butted his head lightly into the line of her jaw, getting a giggle out of her. Despite himself and what loomed before him, he smiled as well. He truly couldn't help how often he did that around Lavorre.

And it would be nice to provide her with more answers before he disappeared to try to deal with this shit. 

Tentatively, he reached out to the bond between him and Frumpkin, and rather than plucking the chord strung there, he only slid a finger along a string. -The other two,- he asked. -They're all right?-

Frumpkin flopped against Lavorre, head tucked against her collar. The bright look drained from Lavorre's face in favor of a puzzled one, and she looked over at him, a question in her eyes. He held up a hand for a moment more.

-Fine,- Frumpkin's voice whispered across his mind, a rustle of a breeze through grass. -Colony found them. Beau sent me back for you.- A beat. -You're not fine.-

Caleb resisted the urge to let out a heavy sigh. -No, Kitten. I am not.-

"Caleb, he's shivering," Lavorre said, one hand stroking along his side as the other supported his butt. 

-This one will help,- Frumpkin said, voice growing louder, a gust of wind through autumn trees. -Bird won't. Trust this one.-

Caleb gave Frumpkin a considering look as he watched the familiar’s body shiver. -Lavorre, not Brand,- he said.

-Yes,- came the wisp of a reply, and then the connection between them irised down. The connection between the two of them could only truly be severed by breaking the pact between them, but that didn't mean they hadn't learned to filter each other over the years.

After all, a familiar reflected its partner's feelings.

"Caleb," Lavorre said again, a hardness in her voice that hadn't been there before. "Frumpkin keeps shivering like he’s freezing here. Is he okay?"

Caleb looked down at his hands. Was it his imagination, or had dark blotches clustered around his knuckles and the bone of his wrists? Was the shadow spreading even more inside him?

"He is," Caleb said, tucking his hands into each other. "But I am not."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _German Used_  
>  _Licht an_ \- The closest I could get to "Lights!" 
> 
> _Schiesse_ \- "Shit!", with a flavor of "Fuck!"
> 
>   
> _Coming as soon as I edit it_  
>  "What if - what if it weren't just your secret said?"
> 
> Her brow furrowed. "Huh?"
> 
> "What if I also told you a secret?" he asked. "Made it a trade instead of an unexpected revelation."
> 
> She scooted a little closer. "Can it be something I ask you?" she asked. "Like, the kind of secret I'd want to know?"


	5. A Splinter of Shadow and Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you sure that won't disturb your work, Dr. Lavorre?"
> 
> She chuckled at that. "Nah, I can already see that this is pretty well fucked up, Caleb," she said, meeting his eyes. She was - much closer to him than he'd realized, somehow, even knowing how big this couch was. Her eyes were luminous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Ello kind and wondrous readers! We're gonna throw a **Content Warning** on this chapter for Caleb's physical problems, which include: an examination of his damaged shoulder with attendant body horror; coughing, chills and difficulty breathing. None of it shows up in extensive detail, but it's some very present plot points. If folks would like to skip that entire bit, it starts with Jester saying "You're not talking about removing it," and ends 'round about eleven pages later with the line, "Wanna see it?" 
> 
> Caleb's past is also starting to creep in, a little in this chapter and _especially_ in the next, so preemptive warning for physical and psychological abuse of minors by mentors consistent with Caleb's canon background. 
> 
> And as usual, a million heaps of thanks to [raynos](/users/raynos/) and [Canth](/users/CannedCoelacanth/) for their readthroughs, edits, comments and especially for not throwing me out the Internet window for saying, "Y'knooooow, maybe I should cut it early" for the 15th time. ♦

There was a potent pause. "Were you going to tell me, Caleb?" Lavorre asked, voice daggered ice.

He looked up and met her eyes, which in this light had an almost purple sheen to their usual honey brown. "Of course," he said, voice level.

"Oh really? _When_?"

He leaned back against the couch, crossing his arms self-consciously despite how it jarred his shoulder. "When I was going to try to fix it," he said, voice quiet. "I - your healing closed my wounds, but it seems that there was some sort of - I’m not sure what it is, really, but it seems like a sort of shadow - left behind in them. Your magic - I don't think it could have helped more. But, uh, I have - hmm, possible ways to handle this sort of thing."

Her face had shifted as he'd explained, from hard anger to something more quietly annoyed and concerned. One hand half-consciously stroked Frumpkin's body, as if bleeding off some nervousness with that gesture; he could hear the rumble of Frumpkin purring against her. "How do you know my magic couldn't do anything for it?" she asked, then rolled her eyes at herself. "Aside from the first healing I cast on you not doing anything for it. But I've got more I could throw at it, Caleb; my magic is hardly depleted."

He looked away, searching for the words to convey that he had an intuition rather than some sort of experienced fact. Lavorre's magic came primarily through her strange friendship with a Green Fey called "The Traveler"; he'd granted her a boon of power that she had learned how to shape in a variety of ways over her life. But given Frumpkin’s reactions - he was hard pressed to see how that variety of magic could deal with this. 

Even so, Frumpkin had said she could help him.

"You don't know," she said, cutting into his thoughts. "You were just guessing." She lifted her chin. "Or you didn't think I was strong enough to help you."

He shook his head at that. "You threw a shadow dog so far into a field that it disappeared, right before you dimension hopped us into another field and then closed my wounds.” A rueful smile curved across his mouth. “And I’ve seen what you can do with more preparation as well. Your strength is certainly not in doubt with me, Lavorre.”

She tried to keep her chin up, stiff and proud, but couldn't manage it, not with the sudden brightness to her eyes.

"But Frumpkin has reacted to this - shadow - with fear all evening," he said. "Like him, your magic is Green Fey in nature."

She tapped her chin. "True. But my magic is at least better for healing than yours." She smiled, which softened her expression. "I seem to recall you stating that on multiple occasions, that the way you channeled the arcane didn't lend itself to that sort of thing."

He could feel the flush in his ears, and the sudden wash of heat felt strange under his skin. "I. Uh." He sighed. "I have - ways, Lavorre, and they could be of help in this case. They already have a little, down in the field. If I were to, well, utilize more of that - them - it could help, well, cleanse this."

Her face went still. "You're not talking about removing it," she said, "you're talking about a purge."

There was no denying it; if he used Brand to take care of this, he was going to burn. "Yes."

She studied him for a long moment, long enough for even the silence to feel stretched to him, long enough for him to have to look away from her eyes. Then, she made a shooing gesture at him. "Scoot over," she said. "Let me see it."

"Pardon?"

"Before you do this - whatever it is, secret forbidden technique from the middle of the Black Forest, I should look at it." She gave him a lopsided smile. "And I know what I always say, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t studied it, Caleb. I do mostly know what I’m doing.” 

"That seems fair," he said, voice quiet, and shifted over on the couch.

"Great!" she said, then tilted her head to nuzzle Frumpkin. "Sorry, kitty-cat, you're gonna have to move," she murmured.

Frumpkin made a _mrr_ sound of agreement, and the next Caleb knew he was sitting on the couch arm next to Lavorre’s space, tail twitching against his paws. He, apparently, was going to supervise.

Lavorre shucked the blankets on the chair and shifted over to sit next to him. After a moment of the two of them just looking at each other, her face took on an amused cast. "Y'know, for me to look at this, you need to lose the cardigan and shirt," she said.

"Ahhh." He nodded. "Yes, right. You're - right."

He slipped out of the cardigan and placed it on the couch cushion next to him, then paused. "Uh, Lavorre?"

"Mm? C'mon, Caleb, off with the shirt."

"I could just roll up the sleeve."

She grinned and waggled her finger in front of her face. "No, no, Caleb, that will not do," she said. "How am I supposed to see the extent of things working around the fabric of your t-shirt?" Her grin broadened, showing teeth. "And besides, who knows medicine here? Me, yes? I say it needs to go, so - it needs to go."

He blew out another sigh. "Unassailable logic, Lavorre," he said. "Just - if I may ask?"

"Yeeees?"

“Try, uh - try not to look around too much," he said, unease in his voice.

Her grin receded to a softer look, and she nodded. "Don't worry," she said, voice surprisingly gentle. “I’ll keep my eyes glued to this area,” she waved her hand at the general direction of his shoulder - from the front, which was most important. “This right here.” 

"Thank you," he said with a nod, and then bent forward to pull the shirt over his head. His entire arm felt as though it creaked from cold, as if he had just been out on a hard winter evening and had yet to defrost; fingertips of chill skated over the skin of his collar and chest, which certainly didn't ease the pit in his stomach. And that was only partially from the infection in his shoulder; normally, he kept a shirt on in the company of others for all but the most intimate of moments. 

"Oh, shit," Lavorre whispered. 

That, he was sure, had nothing to do with his glowing pallor and boney body. 

Mechanically he folded his shirt and set it on the couch next to him, just to have something to do with his hands. Then, he took a breath - and looked over at the wound. 

The bruised splotches and purple tinged scratches he'd slapped a bandage over had leaked, the dark smudges discoloring the entirety of his shoulder and creeping towards his neck as well as down and twisting around his elbow. He turned his right hand up and blanched; the purple shadows were a dark pathway tracking along the vein straight down to his hand, while softer edged marks branched off to stain the sides of his arm.

"I'm going to take the bandage off," Lavorre said, voice calm and, noticeably, meant to be calming. He certainly noticed, because it rather worked. 

"All right," he replied, closing his eyes. When he had put the bandage on his arm, it had not looked normal, but it hadn't been THIS bad; this looked like things had been advancing.

And every time he used bits of his magic, the cold chill seemed to dig in deeper.

 _It's feeding off it,_ he thought numbly, and shivered. _It’s feeding off of...me_. 

That stilled Lavorre's hands from working at the tape on the bandage. "I think you could put your cardigan half on again," she said, not quite meeting his eyes. "Y'know, drape it over your shoulder and back on the other side.” 

_Ah, she has noticed,_ he thought, but still asked, "Are you sure that won't disturb your work, Dr. Lavorre?"

She chuckled at that. "Nah, I can already see that this is pretty well fucked up, Caleb," she said, meeting his eyes. She was - much closer to him than he'd realized, somehow, even knowing how big this couch was. Her eyes were luminous. "So no need for you to be completely cold." She waggled her eyebrows at him. "Nice as the view is."

Despite the situation, he made an amused noise. "That, Lavorre, is a blatant lie," he said, reaching over for his cardigan and draping it so it covered his shoulder and as much of his back as he could. "That I can be sure of."

She tore off the rest of his bandage in response, which given the amount of tape he'd used, should've hurt more; instead, there was a strange feeling to it, like someone had rubbed gum into his skin. The noise made him wince; the lack of feeling made him shudder. 

"There you go again, making assumptions that you don't have the data to back up," she said, fingers smoothing lightly over his skin. “Tsk-tsk-tsk, what would Doctor Hass say about that kind of research behavior?” She arched her fingers to tap her nails against the skin of his shoulder, a sensation he registered more with his eyes than with his arm. 

The mention of his direct supervisor - and occasional mentor, depending on if his husband Yussa felt Hass better suited for some task - immediately pulled Caleb’s mind off the fact that his arm was apparently turning into a block of ice. “Oh, likely that I should know better at this point, or that he was glad to see I was taking a novel research stand,” he replied, voice dry. 

“Is it a novel research stand to not confer with colleagues before going off to do a dangerous experiment on yourself?” she prodded, as she continued to examine his shoulder from all angles. 

“No,” he sighed, “no, that is a very old school way of research, in fact. And not a very good one, in these circumstances.” He resisted the urge to tug his cardigan up higher and cover more of himself, like his entire head and face. “I am sorry, Lavorre, that I assumed you would have no knowledge of such things, even with your background in medicine. I just - wasn’t sure what was going on, either, until just now.”

She stopped poking at him, and to his surprise, her fingers gently stroked his cheek; his head jerked to look at her, body tensing in a little, but she moved away slowly from him, and her face showed no surprise. 

“Most people wouldn’t understand this, Caleb,” she said, voice soft, eyes knowing. “And you’re lucky you have Jester Lavorre along, ‘cause I both know what this is and am 95% sure I can fix it.” 

His eyes widened. "How?"

She leaned back from him on the couch, and her face was uncharacteristically serious. "Well, that depends on how comfortable you are keeping secrets, Caleb," she said. "Because - what you know about the kind of magic I can do, it's mostly right, but not entirely. And the other bit, I don't share much. Oh, the Institute knows, 'cause they have to. But my teachers, especially my friends here?" She shook her head. "Nah."

"Does Beau know?"

"Yeah," she said with a grin. "She has to since we share a bathroom. The rest of our roommates, though?" She shrugged. "Don't think so. At least, not directly from me."

"And you would be - comfortable - sharing this with me?"

"Comfortable?" She made a face. “Not really. Or - well, it kinda wasn't anything I was planning on doing anytime soon? But! Desperate times and all." She nodded at his arm. "That doesn't look like it's going to keep for another seven hours."

"Bit less than that now," he murmured absently, mind racing. “So - this is something very personal to you, Lavorre, this secret?” 

“Eeeh - kinda?” Her face scrunched as if she were really pondering it. “Liiiike - you could technically sorta see it as my _most_ personal thing? I mean, I don’t think it is, but it is - technically - up there pretty high.”

“Ah, well.” He looked up to the ceiling, swallowed, and - took a different approach than he normally would on this sort of thing. Which, really, he probably should have expected needing a different tack around Lavorre and this entire evening that’d already gone sideways multiple times. “I - don’t think you should be the only one who has to do that, Lavorre.”

Her brow furrowed. "Huh?"

"What if I also told you a secret?" he asked, still examining the wood of the ceiling. Spruce for most, fir for the rafters, and small sprigs of eldar still in place where he and - the others - had left them. "Made it a trade instead of an unexpected revelation."

She scooted a little closer, pulling his focus back to the couch. "Can it be something _I_ ask you?" she asked. "Like, the kind of secret I'd want to know?"

Instinctively, he balked at the thought, but let it sit in his mind a few moments more to see if he could get used to it. "If you are all right with negotiating some of that, then yes," he finally said. "Aside from what I could not tell you at all, there are some confidences that are not solely mine to keep, and I have no way of asking those others their permission about that.” 

"Sure sure, that sounds fine," she said, a brilliant grin breaking out over her face, so bright it made his mouth curve in response. "Ooh Caleb, I am going to ask you the deepest question!"

“I do not doubt that, Lavorre,” he replied, and then added a heavy, long-put upon sigh, just to keep the mood light. However, instead of continuing to smile at him, she bolted straight upright, concern clouding her features. “Something wrong, Lavorre?” 

"Your breath just showed up cold in this room, is what," she said, voice taut.

He blinked at her, taking an automatic breath in - and his eyes went wide as it felt like winter blew through him, frost tickling his nose hairs as ice-chill crackled in his chest. 

“Yeah, like that,” she said, sympathy in her eyes. “All right, Caleb, we’ll trade secrets. Ready for mine?” 

Hand to his chest, afraid to speak, he nodded.

She smiled, and it was lopsided and didn't reach her eyes. "I really hope you are," she muttered, then tipped her head back and smoothed her hands up over it, starting at her jawbone and ending at the back of her head.

For a moment, nothing; and then, Frumpkin let out a sudden, high chirp, and Lavorre seemed to shift sideways.

She pulled her hands - which were now blue, though with the same violently neon polish on her nails - back down along her cheeks and neck to steeple just in front of her chin. Her hair, too, had turned blue, and curled within her springy curls were a pair of neat, almost cute, ram's horns. She tilted her head down completely, and the skin of her face and neck had gone blue as well beneath a generous dusting of gold and brown freckles across her nose and cheeks. She blinked at him, and her eyes were phlox purple; she offered him a tentative smile and now showed a hint of fangs as well as teeth. Most striking of all, though, was that the arrangement of her features - wide eyes, comparatively small nose, bow mouth - no longer seemed off to him. The obscuring veil had been pulled completely back, and what he saw before him was the real Lavorre.

And she was - _beautiful_ . More than that, this was _right_. Her disguise before hadn’t been flawed, really, but he had always known there was something that obscured her true face. Now, here it was, and it all fit together. 

Oh was he in _so much trouble_.

“You're a tee...a teef...a tuf...“ He shook his head, shunting that word and the chilled stutter aside. “Touched,” he managed. 

Her smile faded a hair. "You mean, Twisted?" she asked, voice grounded in a thick, bitter note. 

“No.” He shook his head as emphatically as he dared, repeating, “No.”

Then, he did something he never would have done otherwise, but he couldn't handle that note in her voice: he reached out and gently touched the side of her face, fingers skating oh-so-lightly from temple to jaw. "Just a language fumble, Lavorre. Jester. Truly, this is - you are - "

Frost seemed to shimmer in his lungs again, and he pulled his hand back to cough hard against it, pulling air in hard through his nose, trying to replace that cold with the warmth of the room.

"Yeah, we'll discuss what you meant later," she said, a resigned sigh in her voice. "First, we need to pull that shadow out of you."

He sputtered another cough out, then asked, "And how do we do that?"

She gave him a thoroughly amused look. "You are going to sit still on this couch and do what Dr. Jester tells you," she said. "And I will do some secret Touched magic on you and et voila! You will be fine in a jiff."

He coughed lightly, doing his best to resist taking a deep breath, one that would taste faintly of mint and feel like it _crunched_ in his chest. "Say on, Dr. Jester."

She dimpled at him - and those were much more noticeable on her face now, the little creases and divots and wrinkles, the kind that illusions so often smoothed over - and then shifted over on the couch, eyes looking him over. "I think - mm. Yes, I think you should stay there, and I will go around behind you. That all right?"

He gave a nod of mute agreement. 

"Good!" Saying so, she hopped up off the couch and headed around the back of it. And then she was behind him, her hands settling just to the side of his neck. His skin was bare in both places, yet her hands were cooler on the left side of his neck than the right. He wished he could lean against them in some way, to feel the press of her support more firmly against his skin. 

Her hands slid down, slipping under his sweater to one side, settling next to his injured shoulder on the other. "Do you mind if I push your sweater aside?" she asked. "Just off your skin here." She skimmed her hand further under the sweater, coolness settling firm a moment later on the bone of his barely bruised shoulder. "It'll help with what I'm going to do."

" _Ja_ ," he said, voice soft and thick. He wished he had been able to drink some of the tea that sat on the table in front of him, but that had not been the way of things. "Do as you need, Lavorre."

She shifted behind him, and then her voice was in his ear, soft and obviously amused. "Oh, I think we're past surnames now, don't you, Caleb?" she said. "It's Jester."

Had it not felt like an ice storm inside him at the moment, he might have been able to figure out a more charming response to her. This closeness - her hands, her voice, her face and her form, that lovely Touched form - was doing its best to have an effect on him as it was.

It was doing a pretty good job of having an effect on him, even. Thankfully, his body currently had other, more preoccupying matters to deal with.

So all he said was, "Of course. Jester."

He could almost hear her smile as she leaned back away from him, and with easy efficiency, pulled the edge of his cardigan aside to droop against the crook of his elbow. "There," she said. "And I'll keep doing my best not to look, Caleb."

A thing that might not matter once they got to trading secrets, but - "Thank you."

"Eh, easy, not a problem," she said, and he could almost see the careless gesture she made along with it.

Then, her hands resettled on either side of his neck again. "Now - how's your knowledge of Rift languages?" she asked, hands tightening and loosening lightly against the muscle. It wasn't quite hard enough to be a full massage, but the motions felt similar.

"Barely passable," he admitted. "The Fey languages, yes. Enochian tongues for my studies. But those of the Rift - no offense meant - tend not to author books."

"You could trade with them for some, though," she replied, that same smile in her voice.

"Mm, that, I believe, would be...complicated."

"Sounds like a possible secret there," she said.

"It is."

"I'll keep that in mind. All right! Well, you're about to understand nothing I say, so - just try to relax?"

He managed a faint smile at that. "I'll do my best."

She pulled her hands back from his shoulders then, leaving him feeling somehow colder, even though his skin certainly ran hotter than hers. He'd barely a moment to ponder that conundrum when she clapped like a drum above his head and began to speak.

The languages of the Rift - Infernal, Devil, High Abyssal, Outer Abyssal and all the others he'd only seen as names in a text - were all supposed to be harsh and grating to those outside of the Lower Realms. Yet in listening to Jester speak - or rather, intone - over him, he was struck by its cadence. Languages with sharp stress patterning, like his native German or English, often had a drumbeat feel to their phrasing; in this, beneath the affricated sibilants and tonally tightened vowels, there was a liquid sense, like a curling river of syllables slowly meandering around him.

He was so caught up in listening to the sound of it that he didn't notice Jester touching him until her hand curled around his shoulder and squeezed. At which point, it felt like half his body lit up in cold spots: an ice burn along his arms to the half-numb tips of his fingers as curls of frost licked along his collar and ribs. He sucked in air, unable to help himself, and Jester's tone turned softer a moment, her fingers rubbing little circles along the bone of his shoulder. The cold in him seemed to draw - taut, almost, like it was being drawn closer to the surface, and he shuddered at it, shivered at it, left arm completely turned to gooseflesh.

He had spent a long time - naturally, then magically - not ever being cold like this, half-frostbitten and still exposed. His shoulders hunched, body instinctively curling inward to try to conserve some heat, head tucking down to his chest. 

"Stay with me, Caleb, still and with me, for a moment more," Jester breathed in sing-song. "Gotta get all the little threads, the little bits and pieces, _qdyijy la wmivas ul edity suzmul haf_..."

She continued her soft croon as her fingers circled the entirety of his shoulder again, and he let himself get pulled into the rhythm of her words once more, body relaxing a hair. Then, she laid her palm against his shoulder and curled her fingers in so her nails - which were less neatly manicured in this form than her usual disguise - dug lightly into the skin. Her tone shifted again, pitch deepening, flow of words turning from a smooth river to chunks of broken ice, uneven and choppy; within him, it felt as if all the pieces of cold seemed to shiver at her words, loosening their hold on his blood and bone. 

She squeezed his shoulder. "All right - next step," she said.

Her hand pulled off his shoulder, and it felt like every icy trace in his body was _yanked_ upwards.

He gasped, groaned, gripped the couch as Brand inside him fluttered restlessly; on the arm of the couch, Frumpkin let out the long, low moan of a cat in distress. Still Jester continued pulling, voice staying at that same, low chop of sound, and after some time - a long time, subjectively, certainly hours - the grating feeling of a splinter being slowly pulled from him eased, becoming more akin to the drag of rough fabric over his skin. He loosened his grip on the couch, sagging forward, and focused on his breathing. The ice flakes within him had melted into just a faint coolness, like a taste of autumn air, and he focused on replacing that with the air of the pocket: in through the nose, out slowly through the mouth.

Even that faint chill had completely faded when Jester's voice suddenly grew louder a moment, held - then stopped. He raised his head, realizing that while he still felt chilly, the pain was less...present, more like an aftershock. He held out his arm in front of him, and the vein no longer showed the disturbing shadowing of before. He looked at his shoulder and arm, and while the claw marks and faint bruising remained, that was all. The marks had even faded into a softer, healing red.

He sagged back into the couch, tipping his head back to try to see what he could of Lav - of Jester. "It's done?"

She leaned in over him, face so close his vision was full of blue skin and golden freckles. "Mm-hmm!" she said. "Totally done."

He closed his eyes and let out a slow, relieved sigh. "Thank you. Thank you so much, Jester."

"Of course, Caleb," she said, voice soft, one hand lightly brushing against his temple, his hair. Part of him relaxed, and for a stupid moment, he wished her fingers would cup his face, so he could turn into her hand and breath deep.

Then - in a much more excited voice that fractured his reverie - she asked, "Wanna see it?"

His eyes blinked open to find her still above him, now grinning brightly. "You - uh, you have it?"

She nodded, eyes shining.

"Ye - yes," he said. "Yes, I would like to see it."

She tapped his nose with a finger. "Gimme a minute, then!" She winked. "Enough time for you to get dressed again."

Ah, right - that was a thing he could do now. 

He still felt shaky as he fumbled for his undershirt, but his hands were sure as he slid it over his head. He was probably more tired than anything, he decided, and very likely in need of some water and a decent meal to fully recover. Luckily, he still had that cup of tea in front of him, and in a couple of sips, had downed most of it. It was cool, it was bitter, and it was perfect.

Frumpkin had crawled along on the back of the couch to sit closer to him now, watching him in that side-eye way cats often did. "Frumpkin, did you report back to Beau and Dairon that we were all right?" he asked - and was not sure for a moment which language he asked him in. 

Frumpkin raised one paw as if to lick it, eyes cutting to him as he did so with a look that did not take years of experience to read. Caleb gave a nod of agreement, then added - in careful German this time - "That we are all right now, then _._ "

Frumpkin gave his paw a couple of cursory licks, then stood up and gave a short shake, an all-over warm-up of his muscles. He jumped from the back of the couch to the couch cushion, paused a moment, then turned back to Caleb. He raised a paw in the air and pawed at it.

Caleb tentatively held out his hand, and Frumpkin arched under it to push up and curl into it, fully rubbing his head across Caleb's palm. "Ah, Frumpkin," Caleb sighed, then curled a finger beneath his chin to scritch there and along his jaw, his favorite places to be scratched. Frumpkin allowed him to get both sides of his jaw, head tilting this way and that, before he pushed the finger away with a paw.

"Safe travels," Caleb said.

Frumpkin seemed to not acknowledge him as he turned away, hopped onto the floor, and disappeared in a haze of green and orange motes.

"Where's Frumpkin going?" Jester asked, reappearing from the guest hallway door. She had something he couldn't quite make out in her hands.

"Back to let Beau and Dairon know we're okay," he said. He ran a hand over his hair - which had to be a mess at this point, he was sure - and added, "He would've normally done it before, but - "

"You weren't entirely okay," Jester filled in. She set a container on the table, then stepped back with a "Ta-da! Your very own Shadow fern."

His first thought was that she had finally found a use for that opaque glass half-vase he'd had for years. His second thought he spoke out loud: "Is that...all of it?"

She'd called it a fern, but it reminded him more of a child’s drawing of a tree: a stump of purple-black that branched into scraggly, needle-like branches. There were three branches at various heights, each with its own fan of plastic-looking "leaves"; as he watched, the whole of it seemed to sway slightly in an unseen breeze. At most, it was ten inches tall, and certainly didn't seem like enough shadow to have twined throughout his arm and into his chest and lungs.

Jester gave him a look, then tittered behind one hand, violet eyes amused. "You should know better than anyone that magical material compresses very easily, Professor," she teased. "So yeah, that's all of what came from the seed."

"Seed?" he asked. He was not one to stare into someone's eyes - far from it - but he found himself wanting to look more directly at Jester now, just to take her in. She seemed to notice; her eyes slid away, and she sat a little ways from him on the couch. 

"Mm-hmm," she said, focusing on the plant. He tried to do so as well, yet his eyes kept coming back to her. "Those mastiffs - it's not really poison that they spread to people, it's pieces of themselves, of the Shadow Lands." She wrinkled her nose. "Like dirt from your nails getting into a wound. If a bit of it takes root in that wound, it becomes a 'Seed of Winter'," she made the air quotes seemingly on autopilot, "and starts to grow by sucking down on a person's energy." She met his eyes for a moment. "That's why you felt so cold, and why your breath showed like you were breathing in the cold, too, 'cause it was devouring your heat to root itself in place."

His eyes were pulled to the plant now, swaying the other way in an unfelt breeze. "Would it have killed me?" he asked.

"Maybe? Depends on how good a host you were," she said with a shrug. "Some folks I knew growing up, they'd cultivate Seeds of Winter for their magical properties, which meant hosting them until they got something like a bush. It's a piece of life from another plane, after all, and very good for some potent potions." Idly, she studied her nails. “And it don’t sell for cheap, either.”

"So it's...still alive?" He couldn't help the worry in his voice.

She waggled her hand, head bobbing and nose crinkling along with it as if to show how iffy it was. "It's - more dormant than dead?" she said. "You could use it as a toothbrush if you wanted without too much trouble, but also, if you knew the right words and rituals, you could replant it in some other life." She paused, thinking. "Or if there were some patch of this plane you’d prepared right, you could stick it in there. But you’d have to be careful with that, since it’d draw Shadow Land focus here."

Meaning that it would make a better match between this demiplane and the Shadow Lands. For some, that might be exciting, but for him?

He studied the plant and its slightly shifting shadows a moment more, then shook his head. "No - uh, I think I will pass it onto the Institute for their studies. Mine certainly do not, uh, focus on this sort of area."

He tilted his head to look over at her. "Though I find it interesting that, um, it seems that yours have."

Her eyes widened a hair, and then her cheeks shaded faintly purple - oh, she was _blushing_ , wasn't she? "Uh, not - studies, really, per se? More like, it kinda - " she gestured at her body "- came with the territory for me. Learning about, y'know, Shadow Lands - stuff."

"It is fascinating," he said, leaning back into the couch.

She blew a raspberry. "You would say that, Caleb," she replied. "But, y'know, it's also - "

She paused, and her head drooped slightly, eyes leaving him as her hands started twisting in the fabric of her shirt again. Concern bloomed in his mind as she hemmed and hawed, but before he could ask, she said, "Uh. Hey Caleb?"

"Yes, Jester?" he replied, injecting as much of a warm note into his voice as he could.

If he weren't mistaken, her cheeks went a little more purple at that, and she seemed to almost squirm on the couch. "Oh - uh - don't be distracting, you!"

He blinked at her. "I'll, uh, do my best," he said, voice sliding back to normal.

She flashed him a brief grin. "Better, that's better." She sucked in a breath and heaved it out as a short sigh, then tilted her head back and blurted out, "HeysoshouldIputtheveilsbackonsoIlooknormaltoyou?"

He blinked again. Multiple times, in fact, as he painstakingly pulled that word through his English-language processor and chopped it up into the necessary bits. "should I" "put the veils" - oh, that explained much - "back on" "so" "I look normal"...

..."to you."

Now it was his turn to blush and look at his hands. "Uh - no, Jester, you don't need to do that," he said, weaving his fingers together. "It is - perfectly, _perfectly_ \- fine, for you to keep them off as long as you feel comfortable doing so."

"...you really don't mind?" she asked, and he looked up enough to catch her peering subtly - for her - at him.

He shook his head with a little more emphasis than usual. "Truthfully, honestly, and, uh, a little embarrassingly - no. I do not. Uh, in fact - " He coughed against his fist. "I quite like it. A lot. Seeing this - seeing _you_ as you are, Jester."

Silence fell between them then, as he did his best to both not look at her while it felt like his entire face did its best to match his hair. 

And then, her blue hand came into view and covered one of his, tugging it away from the other. She curled both hands around that hand, his hand, and he had to look at her then, to meet - as best he could - those wide, purple eyes.

"So what was that word you almost said?" she asked, voice soft, face stilled. "What did you almost call me?" Her hands tightened gently on his. "I'm so, so curious to know."

"Ah," he said, and a gentle smile curled across his face. " _Tiefling_. I nearly called you a _tiefling_. It is, uh, German for - those Touched as you are. With the horns and - uh - the skin - um - “

It occurred to him then why Beau had represented Jester with horns before, what seemed like years ago in the field. She must have thought he'd known, even though Jester was sure he didn't.

"With all of you as you are," he finished.

Her face tightened with emotion; so did her grip, to a point of being a bit uncomfortable. "Really?" she asked, her voice high and needy.

"Really." He laid his other hand on top of hers. "If you’d like, I’d be happy to show you the word in a dictionary."

She made a sort of - high squeak sound, almost like a cat chirp, but with an edge that made his eyes widen. "Oh - fuuuck," she said, turning her face into her sleeve. "Fuck fuck _fuck_ Caleb."

"Wha...?"

"I thought it'd be fine, just the two of this in this cozy little cabin between the planes for eight hours, with the heat and the running water and the separate guest wing," she went on. "But you just had to go be full of shadow, so I just had to pull off the veils, and then you just - just had to be you and like me like this, like _this_ , and - _fuck_ , Caleb." Her face came up again, annoyance rolling across it. "And now all I'm going to be thinking about for the rest of this evening is how much I want to kiss you." She pouted, obvious and sullen, then looked down. "And how much you're not gonna let me," she finished, voice growing faint across the words.

For a moment, everything seemed to fuzz and grow distant, as if his brain had suddenly lost focus on the room. He could feel himself blinking, could feel his lips start to shape words but never quite speak them. But more than anything, he could feel the pressure of their hands intertwined: Jester holding his with his hand over the top of it all. It was warm, and it was solid, and it still held that edge of pain from Jester clasping his other hand a mite too tightly. It was very obviously real.

So everything else that'd just happened was also - real.

He swallowed, rolled his lips to moisten them, and tried to say her name. What came out was, "Uh. Wh-what?"

She looked up, annoyance on her face; however, the moment she took him in, her face relaxed to a more sympathetic look, and a softness came into her eyes. "You didn't know that?" she asked, a comforting note in her voice. She extracted her hands from his. "Or - you're okay with kissing?'Cause we're still technically on the job."

"We - are, yes,” he agreed, flexing his stiff fingers as he latched onto her words. “Yes, we are still technically on the job, since we’ve yet to report back to operations. We're still bound here by the Institute's Code of Conduct."

Which could be very flexible in certain situations - that’s what happened when you’d been dealing with the Fey for centuries - but generally not enough to allow for “spontaneous make-outs just ‘cause.” 

"And you take that very seriously, don't you?" She gave him a knowing smile. "Professor Widogast, who doesn't do any kind of dangerous magic in class. Who is so very careful about how much his magic mixes with his students' workings. And who will bend the world to never, ever do solo office hours with any student."

Her tone was light, and the look on her face was fond, but it felt like her words pinned him to the couch. He suddenly wished that he hadn't sent Frumpkin to Beau and Dairon; he could've used that warm presence around his neck right now. But Beau would have had his hide if he hadn't, and Dairon would have helped - and they would've been right to do so. That wasn't how things in the field worked; that wasn’t the protocol. 

And he worked so very, very hard to follow the rules.

He took a few calming breaths - inhale, exhale; inhale, exhale. "You noticed that, huh?"

She nodded, her brows furrowing a little. "I mean, yeah. It's - I mean, look, Caleb, do I have to spell it out for you? You're young and talented and pret-ty handsome, y'know?" She gave him a quick once over and waggled her eyebrows to emphasize the point. "I wasn't the only one in that class who had a huuuuge crush on you, and that kind of thing leads to - y'know, thoughts. Fantasies about desks."

He could feel his ears go scarlet, and his cheeks were just as hot.

By the curl of her mouth, Jester noticed, but she only let it sit a second before continuing, "But I think a lot of it was - well, not just those kinds of fantasies, but how they worked with your reputation. ‘Cause we all knew what that reputation was; there were rumors about everyone else, but Professor Widogast?” She openly scoffed. “Him, _never_. So it was - it was almost like a challenge, y'know? 'Can I get Professor Widogast to notice me'?" She made a frustrated face and flipped her hands up. "Except when I say it that way it sounds like we were doing some sort of silly shit from a movie to get your attention."

He couldn't stop himself from asking. "Were you?"

"I mean...no? Not really?" She wriggled a little on her cushion, shoulders and hands expressing the not quite reality of such a suggestion. "It was just something we talked about sometimes.” Her eyes dropped, fingers curling in on each other. “Maybe got teased about it a little." 

He swallowed. “Oh?”

That same back and forth head bob, her eyes shyly rising. “Yeah, maybe - maybe just a little.” She must have seen something looking at him, because she sat up, an imploring look in her eyes. "You gotta understand, Caleb, coming to the Institute was some of the first time I've spent away from my Mama and the place I grew up. Everything was new and different and interesting - and so was everyone! And - "

Her eyes dropped, and she tapped her index fingers together in front of her in a nervous way. "And I - kinda got this sense that you noticed me?" she said. "Like, just a couple of times in class, that feeling that - you were looking at me." She half-shrugged. "It was hard to shake that."

"Oh, Jester," he breathed, shaking his head. "I am - so very sorry - that you felt that from me."

She lifted her eyes beneath long lashes, and he was struck again by their color, how different and yet just as fitting as the brown eyes he'd known. "So, that - that wasn't a thing?" she asked.

He rubbed his hand nervously across the back of his neck. "I wish - ah. I, uh, wish I could live up to my sterling reputation in your cohort. But - no. You are very perceptive. I did, um. I did notice you."

Her eyes grew wide, and she leaned forward a touch. "You did?" she asked, voice low. "Really? Me?"

He chuckled. "Yes, Jester Lavorre, _you_." He shook his head. "To the eternal dismay of several of my colleagues and drinking buddies."

She let out a squeak. "You _talked_ about me? With - with other people?"

"Yes, Jester," he said, voice sober. "Because I was worried that I was going to be harmful to you."

That darkened the light in her face. "Why - Caleb, why would you think that?"

He made a face. "That is - something of a complicated answer, Jester." He leaned over and picked up the teacup, less to finish it off and more to have something to fidget with. "On one level, because I do, as you say, take this job rather seriously. And one of the key attributes of that is understanding the power I have, as a teacher and a mentor, in relation to someone as you were, a student." He paused, no longer quite seeing the teacup in his hands. “I have known those who did not. I have seen what they did. I do not wish to be like them, ever.” He took a sip of the tea, wishing it was more than just dregs to wash the taste of memory off his tongue. 

Before she could say something to that, he continued on,"On another level, it is my responsibility to this institution to keep myself properly distant. This Institute, it is a small place, especially in comparison to most universities. Most secondary schools, even. I know that many of those who pass through my class are people who I may meet again out in the field. Some may become colleagues, friends; some may be rivals; and yes, indeed, there can also be - more serious relationships formed. And part of my job is making sure that those who do pass into greater training are those I have some confidence in. It would be - unwise - of me to evaluate someone through the lense of fondness. So to notice you - was a concern."

She had pulled her legs up so that she now sat cross-legged and facing him, face propped on a hand propped on her knee. "Okay, so - one level is about making sure there's good agents out in the field," she said. "I can see why you'd worry about that, even though we all have to go through that secondary certification and stuff." She rolled her neck to one side and rubbed at it with her hand. "I mean, I'm kinda still under warranty for fieldwork and all."

Meaning she hadn't yet spent enough time in the field to do anything solo. "That makes you no less of an agent," he said, then finished off his tea. "But when I first knew you, it was not - assured that you'd make it to that point."

"Mm, okay okay okay, I see that," she said. "But - it sounds like there was more to this than just being a responsible teacher and a good mentor for the Institute. What else is there?" Her tone felt like it had a second resonance to it, one that asked, _what else could it be, Caleb Widogast?_

He looked down. "Ah." He turned the teacup round in his hands for a few moments. "That. Yes. Well." Round and round, cool ceramic under his warmed fingers. "I also still thought you were human."

He turned the cup 'round twice more, then chanced to look up at her. Her face held a distinctly puzzled expression. "But - you're human. Right?"

"Born that way, yes." Which was a very Fey way to skirt around things, but there was enough for her to chew on now as it was.

She tilted her head and peered at him through narrowed eyes. "Is this - mmmmm - oh fuck it, I'll just ask: is this a fetish thing, Caleb? Like, where you can only get it up for blue people? People with fangs and claws?" She made the appropriate gestures with the words. 

He couldn't help it; he barked out a laugh, a sound loud enough that she instinctively leaned away from him. Which turned the loud laugh into quiet chuckling as he leaned over to put the teacup back on the coffee table, then wiped at his eyes with his palms. "Ah, Jester," he said.

"--that's...not a no," she said, scooting back a titch on the couch.

"Then, bluntly: no. No, it is not a fetish; no, I am not the 'Warcraft guy', as Veth would say. I find many types attractive. But - mm. Let me put it this way: I prefer to only act on it with those who are not fully human. Since you use veils and not simple illusions, I continued to think you were human, and so resolved to - to be just a friend to you."

She studied him a moment, then smiled in a way both fond and annoyed. "So when I got around to asking you out for actual coffee, rather than just arranging to bump into you in the coffee shop whenever I could...?"

"I would've tried to keep it just a friendly thing," he said, lips curving into a smile back. "And had some very serious and strict conversations with myself if that didn't seem to work."

She shook her head, smile broadening. "I think you underestimate me there, Caleb," she said, "if you think I wouldn't have gone for kisses the first chance I got."

"Oh, no, I thoroughly believe you would have forced that crisis," he said. "And without knowing," he indicated her with a sweep of his hand, "what I know now, it would have been a sincere crisis in me." He shook his head slightly. "One which would have annoyed the absolute shit out of Beau, given that she knows."

"Yeah, I did kinda swear her to secrecy on that," she said, voice matter-of-fact. "And speaking of secrets - I think I've figured out the one I want to ask you for."

"Is it about why I won't get involved with humans?"

"Maybe?" She stretched her arms over her head, rocking her head this way and that, as if working out the kinks in her mental process. "But it's more about why you're so serious about all these little rules. I mean, you like - have them set around you like bars, like some sort of safety cage." She demonstrated such with her hands, placing the invisible metaphor all around her. "But it’s not to keep the sharks from you, it’s to keep _you_ from _us_. You know what I mean?” She gave him a soft, sympathetic look, and her voice was gentle as she added, “It's obvious something happened to you to make that happen, so...what was it?"

He had had a feeling the secret she would pull from him would have something to do with this. Truth be told, he had been ready to offer up the secret of Brand as it was. But telling her about the firebird within him was one thing; what she was asking wasn't just about Brand, but what had brought the two of them to be connected, and what that had cost him.

Unconsciously, he put his hand over his chest, right over the spot Brand always showed up on his aura. She had been quiet since they'd come into the pocket - she usually was - minus offering him the energy to keep him on his feet. But now, he could almost feel her shift and fluff up under his fingers, golden feathers brushing heat against his palm.

"Or is that too much?" she asked, a timorous note in her voice.

He took a breath and exhaled it lightly, then let his hand fall away from his chest. "No," he said, "it's not. But - it may be a lot for you to hear right now, and a lot has happened to us already."

She gave a too-casual shrug. "We still have like, what, four hours in here?"

"Closer to five and a half."

"That." She reached out to touch his hand, and her eyes were gentle. "It's not like we don't have time."

His hand turned under hers so that what was a touch became a hold: a little awkward, but still contact. "That is true," he agreed. "But: two things."

She raised her eyebrows, and he could almost see the comment form in her mind; even so, she kept quiet and waited.

"If, at any time, the story is - too much for you, too rough given tonight, tell me and I will stop," he said. "It is my life and I am, sadly, used to the rhythm of it, which I'm told can be very disconcerting for others at times. So please, Jester, stop me if you need it to be stopped."

She nodded, saying in a very serious, quiet voice, "Understood. My story safe word is 'starfruit'."

Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows at her, but she managed to keep that serious expression on her face, though it did crack a little around the edges. He refrained from questioning it, saying, "And the other thing is - I'm going to need more tea - and maybe a snack - for this. Would you like some?"

"Yes," she said, immediate and emphatic. "And if you happen to have something hardier than tea, I would happily take that, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Infernal Used_ , care of an Internet translator  
>  _...dyijy la wmivas ul edity suzmul haf..._ \- leave no shadow in place within you
> 
>   
> _Coming as Soon as I Rewrite Half of It_  
>  "Beginnings are always hard," she agreed. "What about, I dunno, something classic?"
> 
> "Once upon a time?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. Oh - if only she knew -
> 
> She squeezed his hand in response.
> 
> "It is - more true than it seems, even," he murmured to himself, then tilted his head back, eyes falling half-closed. "All right, so. Once - once upon a time - "


	6. A Moment in Amber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But - you're not going to be okay after this, are you, Caleb?" she asked. "With what I asked you to tell me."
> 
> He nodded, eyes dropping to his half-filled cup. He turned the cup around in his fingers for a few moments, then said, "It is an old story." He sighed. "You'd think it'd be easier to tell at this point."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y helo thar, lovelies! Again! I took a break from editing this chapter to write and rewrite the Epilogue, and then without warning the entirety of November happened. Y'know, as much of this year did! Yaaaay 2020. 
> 
> Continuing on from that **content warning** last time for Caleb-specific trauma: abuse, manipulation, and general shittiness from authority figures makes up a big chunk of this chapter, along with references to long-term psychiatric treatment. It's backstory time! and if you're not keen to read any of that, then skip everything from "Once upon a time" to "and his mind had gone blank."
> 
> A double extra heaping of thanks to [raynos](/users/raynos/), who crunched out this edit in record time during a busy week. All the <3!

"Yes," Jester said, immediate and emphatic. "And if you happen to have something more than tea, I would happily take that, too."

"We're still on the job, Lavorre," he said gently as he eased off the couch to head back into the kitchen. Tiredness nibbled at the edges of both his mind and body, but he suspected it was as much about being hungry as it was about having the shadow taken out of him. Trials like Beauregard's weren't supposed to last more than a few hours, and while he'd eaten a late lunch, that could only stretch so far. Likely, Jester was feeling the same. "But if you'd like a snack, I can likely prepare one of those."

"No magical four course meals, huh?" she asked, tone slightly wistful.

"Sadly, no, not with this version of the spell," he replied, voice apologetic, as he stared at his cabinets. Usually when he came into the pocket, it was to do further work on it, and so the supplies he brought were either quick n' easy human food or an Institute version of _lembas_. He had both on hand now, but which to go with?

"It's all right," Jester sighed. "It never is."

The tone of that comment - and the previous - both registered with him, and it aligned all the threads in his mesh of thought in one direction. Yes - that was what was needed right now. Also - did he have something more than tea? If he had, he hadn't brought it into the pocket recently, but there was a loose thread still sticking up in his mind that made him think there was... _something_...

"Also, how come Beau drinks on the job all the time then?" Jester called out, a genuinely curious note in her voice. "At least in the bits she always tells me about, anyways."

"Beauregard's training cancels it out," he replied absently. It was something he'd gotten with her - with Beau - , wasn't it? What sort of thing would she -

Ah, of course. He moved to the correct cabinet, opened it, and reached up to pull the bottle off the top shelf.

"Well, I'm - I'm not entirely human, Caleb. And blue. That has to count for something."

He put the bottle to the side. First things first, he needed to start the process of making tea, and then he could worry about spicing it up a bit.

He pointed at the cups on the table, and then snapped them to appear in front of him, saying, "I do not think it counts in this case, Jester." While his cup was empty, Jester's was still three-quarters full, and he downed it as if it were a shot.

"Though," he added after he'd finished her drink for her, "you do know more about yourself than I do, certainly. You have shown me many gaps in my knowledge tonight." More at ease with using the inherent magic of the pocket now, he tapped the counter to summon both the kettle and the jug of water to fill it with.

"Of course I know more about being a - what'd you call me again? A ‘Teef-leenk’?"

" _Tiefling_ , yes." He set the kettle to heat, then turned back to the cups. He uncapped the honey mead and poured a measure into each one, taking care to just cover the bottom of each cup.

"I mean, I am one, I was raised one, of course I'd know more about being one than you would, even if you are a super smart academic guy who really should know _something_ about these things."

He paused in his preparations to look over at her; she had her arm draped over the back of the couch and was giving him a winsome look over it. When she caught him looking at her, she fluttered her eyelashes at him, as if to emphasize just how sweet and innocent she was.

Caleb felt the flush burn his ears again, and it suddenly seemed hard to swallow. _She wants to kiss you_ , ghosted the thought across his mind, and his eyes dropped immediately as the flush burned up his neck. He turned away to the cabinets again - snacks, snacks, he had a specific plate of snacks he wanted to put together, that was right.

"We, uh - we all have our, uh, specializations, Jester," he said as he mechanically got down a larger square of black plastic, a sturdy remnant of a sushi order once split with Veth and her husband. "It is - well, it is something they make us do, believe it or not."

She let out an oh-so-delicate snort. "I find it hard to believe someone could keep you from reading books you didn't want to read, Professor Widogast. I mean, isn't it true that your office is the first place the Soul goes when they can't find a book?"

He'd heard that rumor, too. "No, because I keep things fairly organized. I always know what I have read and what I have not." He fished around in his cabinets and pulled down a cheesecloth bag, a small jar, and a nondescript box. It wouldn't be a four course meal, but it would certainly serve for a nosh. "It saves time so that I can read more."

"And after tonight, what would you read more about?" She shifted on the couch, then made a little gasping noise. "Or - what would you ask me about? Since I have all this knowledge you haven't seen before."

"Mm. That, I'll need a moment to consider," he replied.

"Take the time you need, Caleb," she replied, voice airy. "I'll just - rest here."

He checked on her over his shoulder; it looked like she had shifted some pillows so that she could rest her head on them, though her body was still mostly turned towards him. "Not a bad idea, Jester, after this evening," he said. "Though I will do my best to finish this as quickly as I can."

She made the same fluttery hand gesture as before - something like _all good, all good_ , or possibly _do what you need to do_ \- without opening her eyes.. Without her peppering him with questions, he bent to finishing off the impromptu meal as quickly as he could, arranging the items on the tray as his brain restlessly flipped through any other options that would be good for both of them. He settled on one final option just to add a little more flavor to the tray, keeping one ear on her breathing to see if it ever smoothed out into actual sleep, and then slid the entire thing onto a much more stable wooden serving tray.

That done, he focused on heating the kettle up the final bit again. There were no shooting pains down his arm now, no blunt poker against his shoulder, only a warm feeling of relief as his magic moved through him smoothly. Once the kettle began to steam, he said, "On giving it some thought - "

"Hmm?" Her voice was a little fuzzy around the edges, but only a very little. Given all she’d done in the ritual, and the circumstances she’d done it under, she’d likely be energized by it a bit longer. After that - well, she’d probably get quite tired very fast. He hoped this little repast would help smooth out that drop to something not so abrupt. 

"I'd ask about what you said earlier," he said, bringing the kettle back to the counter with him. "That you're blue. I'd ask about that."

"That seems - like a pretty small thing to ask about, Caleb."

"Ah, but it's unusual, Jester," he replied. He poured water over the measure of chai and honey in each cup. "I do know enough about the basic characteristics of Tieflings that their skin color tends to be in the warmer range of colors: reds and purples, browns and blacks. Cooler colors show up more on Fey-types, like Orcs and Sprites, or those who dwell with the Elements, like Seafolk." He stirred each cup briefly, then snapped them back to the table. "And you pointed it out yourself as something unusual, just a moment ago," he said. "So I would certainly follow up on that."

She shook her head. "I thought Beau was my detective friend," she said, and there was a gentle edge to her voice, a sense that he had brushed against something sensitive.

 _Well done, Widogast,_ he sighed to himself.

"We both enjoy figuring things out," he replied, picking up the serving tray. "We just do it in different ways." He moved around the far side of the couch from her so that he could settle the tray between them. "And it's not a four course meal, but it's what I can offer for now. Next time - " _funny to assume there will be a next time_ "- I'll be sure to have better dinner options."

Her eyes went wide as she took in the tray, and were still such when she looked up at him, irises shining even in the room’s gentle light. "Caaaayleb," she said, almost singing his name, "I didn't expect - what is all this?"

"Mini Fruit and Date bars, wheat crackers with boba jelly, and bacon crisps," he said, indicating each section as he named it. "The boba jelly comes from the same mixtures as those 'three meal' boba you may have seen around campus, but has been diluted some so it’s just filling, not a meal replacement.”

She pressed her hands together, face still lit up. "I didn't even know they made those kinds of mini bars!" she exclaimed. "Or bacon crisps." She tilted her head slightly, and her eyes found his again. "Though that sounds like a Beau snack."

"Well-deduced, Jester," he said, smiling a little back. "It is a favorite of hers."

"She is very fond of pocket bacon," Jester agreed, and then tentatively reached for a mini-bar. "Can I - is it - "

"Have at it, Jester," he said, picking up a cracker. He nodded at the two cups where they sat on coasters. "And more tea, too, if you'd like."

But she was already on it, one of each item somehow already in her hands and headed towards their inevitable end. He left her to that as he bit into his cracker; boba jelly tended to morph on the tongue based on how full one was, and his was still at the "eat more" tart stage. She had used even more magic than he had across the night, so while her general energy might be up, he'd bet her stomach was growling beneath that.

They consumed much of the tray in silence, and he did his best not to start filling it with mental fretting. There was no doubt in his mind that he'd touched a nerve with Jester, and he had a good guess as to what it likely dealt with; after all, one of their quieter moments before this had been about her mother. But just because he had a guess didn't mean he needed to act on it. After all, he was the one who would be telling stories tonight, and trying to divert her any from that wouldn't be fair given what she'd done.

 _Even if part of you would really like to make use of that old training and get out of this,_ he sighed to himself.

Just as he snagged the last mini-bar, Jester leaned back and let out a sigh. "I needed that," she said.

He nodded to her around his mouthful; he felt better, too.

Her eyes flicked over him again. "Y'know," she said, fingers lacing, "I never really thought about that before - what you said, about how you and Beau both 'figure things out' in your own ways."

He gave a nod as he swallowed. "Neither did I, until I was talking to Beauregard about all the reading the Soul makes her do," he said. "It was, uh, a spontaneous metaphor of sort."

She gave him a faint smile. "I bet she hated all that reading at first."

"Your instincts are, as usual, on point." He found himself mirroring her smile back to her.. "But she has come to enjoy her studies more and more, over time. And it seems that while some of my advice has transferred to her, some of her techniques have rubbed off on me." He fiddled with the edge of his sweater. "Uh. I am sorry if I poked at something, there."

She straightened from her lean and shrugged.. "You just surprised me, is all," she said, then nodded at the tea. "Think that's cool enough to drink yet?"

He nodded, and she stretched and scooted to the edge of the couch to pick it up. He indulged in just watching her a moment as she went through the motions of taking her first sip: testing the side of the cup with a finger; gingerly pulling it closer and inhaling the vapor; the hesitant, careful sip. Or perhaps he was just tired; it had been a more eventful evening for him than he'd had in a long, long time.

A feathery flicker of golden disbelief trailed across his mind.

He was about to pick up his own cup when Jester's eyes went wide, then swung to him. She barely got the cup back on the table before flailing at him, "You put something in this!"

He scooted a little closer to pick up his own cup. "Turns out the only honey I had was honey mead," he said. He took a sip and held it briefly, letting the mingled spice and honey taste sit on his tongue before swallowing. "And while the rules are, in general, strict about intoxication, that is unlikely to happen from the amount I added to your cup."

Jester grinned at him and picked up her cup again. "I mean, I don't drink that much," she said, eyes flashing over the rim as she raised it up, "but I get more the taste here than the feeling." She took that sip, eyes fluttering a little, and his stomach did a weird sort of half-clench, half-flop at the sight. Then her eyes were open again and she said, "So we're probably okay along those lines."

"Here’s to being okay," he said, raising his cup to her. Her eyes crinkled and she showed fang as she raised her own cup, and they clanked them together with perhaps a little too much force before drinking again.

When he lowered his cup, though, she was giving him an entirely different look. "But - you're not going to be okay after this, are you, Caleb?" she asked. "With what I asked you to tell me."

His eyes dropped to his half-filled cup. He turned the cup around in his fingers for a few moments, then said, "It is an old story." He sighed. "You'd think it'd be easier to tell at this point." He took a long drink from the cup, catching a hint of alcohol from the honey this time.

"Sometimes those are the worst stories to get into," she said, sympathy in her voice. "You think you're all right with it, then bam! some emotion just hits you."

"A little of that," he agreed. "And - audience." He took a shorter sip of spice, heat and honey and mulled a moment, then set the tea cup aside. "Jester - that will be a problem here, too, I think. I am not sure, um, if I could ask you to face away - "

"You could," she said, then gave a shake of her head, "but I probably wouldn't."

" - but it is not a story I can tell to you. If that makes any sense." This hadn't been such a difficult thing when telling the story to, say, Yasha or Beau. But Jester - well. He hadn't expected to ever be in this kind of situation with Jester, much less answering the kind of question she had asked him. He wasn't the type to fantasize about being with a crush so much as enjoying a tender moment or two with them; given how his mind worked, there was a lot of - well - red tape to fantasizing responsibly. So he took his joy in little moments and never expected them to amount to much else, which often left him unprepared when they did. 

She took a sip of her tea and regarded him, violet eyes keen. Then, she, too, set her cup aside, clapped her hands together, and said, "Aside from having me face a wall, what would be comfortable for you?"

He fiddled with the edge of his sweater, where the sleeve met wrist. "Truthfully? I'm not sure."

She made a face at him; he shrugged in response. She blew out a breath and muttered something that sounded like Infernal, then straightened and said, "Well. Let's start with something small then." She offered her hand to him. "Would this be okay?"

He glanced at her hand, then at her, and then reached up and slid his hand into hers, fingers adjusting until they fit neatly together. "Yeah," he said, voice soft, "that's fine."

"All right," she said, voice just as soft. "So how about..."

She scooted a little closer, sidling up to him now; the hand holding his shifted up his arm to lightly wrap there, while her other hand took up holding his hand. He felt his breath catch as she settled in next to him, panic flaring along his nerves; then she leaned in and gently laid her head on his shoulder, shifting so her horns wouldn’t catch, and his breath caught again, stomach clenching in a decidedly unpleasant way.

"Is this all right?" she asked. Her fingers were suddenly so very present where they wrapped around him. 

He took a breath, and it felt ragged; she must have heard its edge too, because she immediately shifted away, hand shifting to barely touch his. "Too much, huh?"

He shook his head. "I am sorry, Jester," he managed, eyes flicking to hers briefly but unable to keep looking. "But - as much as I would like you that close - it is also too close."

She patted his hand. "It's okay, Caleb, I get it," she said, and her voice was plain and kind, no hint of tremor or tremulousness. She gently pulled her hand entirely back from his. "I know a bit what that feeling is like."

He nearly bit his tongue to keep from asking her what she meant, but - this wasn't Jester's time for stories, it was his. Instead, he took a deep breath, held it for four seconds, and let it out slowly. "Thank you, Jester," he managed, eyes still fixed on his teacup, "for understanding that." Another slow breath. "Though, foolishly, I would still like you close to me, just - not in that way."

"Hmmm." He turned his head a little to see a thoughtful expression on her face, one knuckle tapping against her chin. She seemed serious, but there didn't seem to be a trace of hurt on her face, which made him relax a little more.

Or so he thought. That was, until she sat up fully, crying out "I've got it!" and snapping both sets of fingers. The combination of sounds made him jolt up on the couch as well. "Oh - you okay?"

"Fine, fine," he reassured, turning to face her a bit more. "Uh - you’ve got it?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Something Mama used to do with me and her - uh - " Warring emotions washed briefly over her face.

"You've told me about your mother's clients," he said, voice light. "Part of how you ended up at the Institute, right?"

"Oh, right right," she said, waving her hand between them as if to clear the air. "I did tell you that story, didn't I? Heh, well, anyways - my Mama, with me as a girl, she used to put a pillow on her lap, then have me lay down on it, so I'd be close to her but also, y'know, close my eyes while she was telling me stories or singing me songs. And I think - I think that'd work here, too?"

"A pillow...on my lap?"

She blinked at his confusion, then offered a reassuring smile. "Let me show you," she said.

A few moments later, Jester had laid one of the couch's pillows against his thigh and laid on it so that she faced away from him. "Now you can drape your hand like so," she said, tugging at the sleeve of his cardigan to drape his hand on her shoulder, "and I can put my hand like this," she laid her hand over his, "and we can be all close without being too close OR me looking at you."

He had to admit, for all that this should feel more intimate than her head on his shoulder, it - didn't. Perhaps it was the rust-and-beige fringed pillow, oversized against his leg; perhaps it was how he could only see the curls of her horns and glimmering blue of her hair when he looked down. But it did feel more muted than the previous position, and it certainly didn't trigger the sudden panic that one had.

So he asked, "Isn't your arm going to get uncomfortable like that?"

She let out a snort of a laugh. "Naaah," she said, shifting a little so that her fingers could interlock again with his, "sometimes I sleep holding onto my shoulder like this."

"Really." His voice was dry.

"Would I stretch the truth like that to you, Caaayleb?"

"Every day ending in y, Jester."

She giggled softly again. "You might be entirely right about that," she said. Then her fingers pressed lightly against his hand. "You okay like this, then?"

"As long as you're comfortable, Jester - then, yes. Unexpectedly so, but yes." He took another breath and let that out slower. "Though - I am not sure how to begin this."

"Beginnings are always hard," she agreed. "What about, I dunno, something classic?"

"Once upon a time?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. Oh - if only she knew -

She squeezed his hand in response.

"It is - more true than it seems, even," he murmured to himself, then tilted his head back, eyes falling half-closed. "All right, so. Once - once upon a time - "

It was a story he'd only told a handful of times in his days at the Institute, and though he'd told it after drinks in the wee hours of the morning - the best time for confessions - mostly it’d come out in much more rigid, necessary settings. This - having Jester so close to him, her breathing a gentle back beat for his words, their fingers touching - was far more intimate than any of that. And so, in his desire to get a little more distance from things, the story came out - a little more like a story than it normally did.

He told her the story of a boy, a boy with flame colored hair. A boy born poor to a family that lived in a small village, one designed to serve a nearby great city. A boy born sickly of body but bright in spirit, with a mind like a furnace that sought to know anything and everything. A boy whose birth had been so hard on him and his mother that he was left an only child in a village full of large families, and so the brightness of his spirit and quickness of his mind stood out sharply among the rest.

A boy who, at a young age, learned that he could make the fire in the fireplace dance, and a little later on, could bring those sparks and flames to dance on his fingers and palms and along the lines of his body. A boy who, despite his family’s warnings, could not resist showing off this trick to others he knew in the small village. 

It was not an easy life for the little family, the boy and his parents. So when an old, powerful man came from the great city, following rumors of the bright boy, the brilliant boy, the boy with a spark, it was seen as quite a turn in their favor. And when the old, powerful man offered to take the boy as his apprentice for a great sum, the boy knew what his fate was to be. So he negotiated for his parents to receive not one payment, but money for all the days he would live. For the old, powerful man promised that under his tutelage, the boy would be forged into a tool to shape the destiny of not just his little village, not just the great city, but the greater nation, and that was surely worth more than just a one-time fee.

And the old, powerful man smiled a smile foreign to his face, eyes alight with knowing, and agreed to the deal. 

So the boy and his parents hugged and kissed and made their farewells, and the next day, the boy took leave of the little village to become the old and powerful man's apprentice. And the first lesson he learned, once they were on their way, was that he was to call the old man ‘Master’; the second, accented by the Master's cane, was that he would never, ever again speak to his Master the way he had spoken to him in that house. And so the boy came to understand that his life would be, from now on, very different from what it had been before.

The boy was not alone as an apprentice, though. There was a dark eyed boy with hair like warm shadows in the Master's care as well, and soon they were joined by a dark eyed girl with hair the color of ripe wheat. And the three of them became, at times, the best of friends and, at times, the bitterest of enemies, for the Master could be capricious with his favor, and they were all too young to understand why. But after a year together, a year of knowledge and experiments, of magic and pain, they were firmer friends than foes. And the boy loved them both as dearly as he'd ever loved anything in his life. While other apprentices drifted in and out of the house, some older, some younger, the three remained a unit of their own.

Until a time, some eighteen months after the old, powerful man had become his Master, when the boy was singled out. A spirit had been caught, he was told, a firebird coming to the end of its life. They had bound it with a collar of silver and gold and chained it with silk, for despite its age, its power remained robust. If that power were siphoned into the boy, he was told, he would become unparalleled in the use of magic, a mage to rival the Fey or the Elementals in their creations and control. And though the boy was told this as if he had a choice, he knew that it was not the case; his Master had already made the decision. It was a formality for him to accept.

His dear friends at first seemed to take joy at hearing this; but within a day or so, it became clear that they were drawing away from the boy. When he confronted them, they at first scoffed at the idea, but he held fast to what he felt, for had they not all sworn their souls to each other? 

His dear dark-haired friend broke first, spilling out that he and his wheat-haired friend believed that their Master sought to destroy him with this power, that there was a catch here that was going to get him killed. 

The boy scoffed at this, for why would the Master endanger him in that way? It would ruin the entire experiment to kill both him and the spirit at the same time. And had the Master not entrusted the other two with dangerous duties as well? They had returned safely and all had reaped the benefits; would not the same apply to him and this?

His dear wheat-haired friend pointed out that they may have come back safely, but he knew that they had not been left unscarred by those missions. The boy knew that the Master did not care for the collateral damage, only that the job got done, the experiment finished. This ritual their Master planned for the boy would be no different - and it was even more likely to see him killed. 

And so their discussion became a fight, one which opened old wounds on all sides. He was accused of caring not for them and only for his pride that he would even consider this thing; obviously he had learned the Master’s lessons well if he only desired this power. He raged at them and pleaded with them and cried bitter tears, and yet, in the end, no peace could be reached between the three of them. 

It tore the boy to pieces to have this rift between him and his dear friends, and yet the idea of refusing the Master seemed impossible to him. And so the boy took the skills his Master had crafted in him over that time and, with daring and cunning and stupidity, broke into the area where they kept the firebird and spoke to her.

Oh, what a beauty she was! Crimson in body, with glints of gold and blue running along her feathers, a proud, powerful neck like a swan, and eyes like liquid coals, deep black with hints of red. But oh, how terrible she looked as well, with the gold and silver torque clamped around her throat, and chains of silk looped around her feet. She had been well and truly caged, and it etched a terrible misery into all the beautiful lines of her form.

Yet she greeted him with a warmth that was like kindness, and to his questions, she gave true answers. Oh yes, her power could be siphoned into him without causing his death, though it would surely be the death of her, Oh yes, his magic would indeed increase, finding whole new heights of use and control, like the Fey and Fiends and kin of both. Oh yes, this was a thing his Master could do; the Master had bound her, had he not? He had prepared this, had he not? He had been - waiting, perhaps, for just such a thing?

And the firebird said to him: tell me true, human boy, do you think your Master intends that power to remain yours?

And she turned her neck and rolled her liquid coal eye and said: tell me true, human boy, if he can capture me and drain me into you, don't you think he can do the same rites to you?

And sparks came from her beak and feathers as she said: tell me true, human boy, isn't your body young and fine, and your Master's...dying?

The boy could see the whole of the plan as the firebird spirit spoke, and he could see that she told the truth. And he cradled his head in his hands and wept lonely tears, for his friends had been right, but he had only understood it once he saw it for himself.

The firebird listened for only a moment, then bade the boy to cease his lament. She had another way, a way where she could be free, and he and his friends would also be free. He only had to do as she said when the time came. He only had to trust her.

The boy had been in the world and seen a darker side to it in his time with the Master. He had been trained in stealth and charm and manipulations along with his beloved friends, and they had all been excellent pupils. But he was still too young, too unrefined, to see a deal too good to be true when couched in a gentle voice and clothed in truth. So of course he accepted, gratefully accepted, and swore he would do all that she said if they could free each other.

And so, on the day when the firebird’s spirit was to be intermingled with the boy's, he performed the initial ceremony to open himself without flaw. The second ceremony of calling up the spirit's power he executed with clockwork precision. But when it came time to channel that power through her bonds and chains into himself, he instead stepped up, placed both hands on the golden and silver torque, and with a resonant word, released her. 

She sighed a wave of heat as the collar fell from her throat. She trilled and spread her fine, dazzling wings, and the last he heard before the flames rose around them was the soft song of her thanks.

He danced with fire that day, the boy. He became, for time unknown, part of her fire and flame. And when they found him later, the boy with flame colored hair was clothed in rags and ashes, and his mind had gone blank.

Caleb paused his recitation to call over his teacup and sip at it; though he had been talking quietly and - for the most part - calmly, his mouth and throat had dried out all the same. He chanced a glance down at Jester; she had made a few noises at the beginning of the tale, but as he’d gone on, she’d grown quiet, just breathing. Her fingers had tightened on his, though, and stayed that way. 

"What - what happened to that boy, Caleb?" she asked after a moment, voice high and gentle and young.

He finished the rest of the tea and placed the empty cup on the couch arm next to him. "The authorities weren't sure what to do with him," he said, voice somewhat rusty despite all its use. "He was obviously out of his mind, though, so they transferred him to a nearby medical hospital. It was thought that he would end up in some sort of long-term mental care, but before that could happen, the Institute found him and claimed him as one of their own."

Jester shifted on the pillow, and he had the feeling she was looking more directly at him now. He didn’t look down at her. "Were you one of theirs?" she asked.

"Not directly, no," he said, a humorless smile flickering on his face. "My Master was involved with the kinds of arcane groups that we at the Institute usually denounce. But in the broadest of terms? I was an arcanist, and so they could claim me as one of theirs." He shifted his hand to place it entirely over hers. "And I am glad they did, for it likely saved my life."

From the rustle of her hair, she’d nodded at that. "So then what happened after they picked you up?" she asked.

"Ah, well." He gave a little chuckle. "I was taken to a long-term mental care facility of their own."

She shifted enough against him that he was sure she was looking up at him. He still couldn’t look at her, not yet, not with the memory still in his veins. 

"They recognized that I had come into contact with something potent and life-altering. I think they may have tried to read my mind a time or two, but," he lightly tapped his chest, "Brand mostly kept them out. Likely, all they saw was fire.” He took a breath and sighed it out. “So they did as they often do in cases like mine and just let me be. Took care of me, kept an eye out for me, and otherwise - left me alone.” 

His voice didn’t break, but it did fall, and he wondered if she could read in that the thought that continued beyond his words: _for years and years_. 

She shifted again, enough so that both her hands could cradle his hand, and he thought that while she might not know the specifics, she might have an idea of where that thought ended up. “That sounds so very hard, Caleb,” she said, voice almost a whisper. “Do you remember any of it?” 

His head tilted back, eyes finding the ceiling. "I think I dream about it, sometimes," he said, voice faint, as if he were recalling it from far away. "And I think - I'm pretty sure - that I dreamt of Brand at the time." His fingers absently touched the center of his chest, and he added, "With her sometimes, too." 

There was a flicker of warmth in him, through him, and under Brand’s steadying influence he was able to look down at Jester. She had turned so that she was face-up on the pillow, and it only took a moment for her eyes to meet his. He offered her the quietest of smiles, and she met it with a tentative one of her own. 

"The firebird may have tricked me into freeing her,” he said, not looking away, “but she still kept her word and shared power with me. She left a fragment of her power, sort of like an egg, within me." He touched his chest again. "She is here, woven into my soul and my power. I call her Brand, though - as she occasionally reminds me - that is only my name for her.” He pressed his hand flat to his chest. “ Without her, and later Frumpkin, I would have never left that time of dreams. And we work well together, still.” 

Jester’s face had a warm expression on it, like a non-verbal “Aww” - and then she blinked. Her eyes went wide. A moment later, she had bolted upright and spun back to face him, horn jewelry tinkling in her haste. “You have a baby phoenix inside you?” she squeaked out. 

"A baby firebird," he replied, blinking at her - all of her. He tapped his chest again. “There are cultural differences between the two, though each has undoubtedly - “ 

She waved her hands at him, cutting off the academic explanation. “A baby firebird then,” she said, “ _inside you_?” 

He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said, “for most of my life now.”

“ _Woooow_ ,” she said. “And I thought it was a big surprise that I was actually a blue girl with horns! But you - have a piece of a _story_ in you, Caleb!” She shook her head a little again, as if the thought just would not settle in her brain. “Wow.” 

He blinked a little, feeling unexpectedly sheepish, and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I must confess, I am so used to it now that I forget how odd it sounds to others,” he said. “Especially since many of those around me know.” 

“So it’s not a big secret?” she asked, and there was a sudden keenness to her voice. 

He gave her a side glance. “Don’t get me wrong, Jester, it is one of my biggest secrets. Just - not to most of the people I work with.” 

“And are close to?” 

The question was quick, and his answer - to his surprise - came back just as quick. “Oh yes, of course.” 

That seemed to appease her, as she sat back, features slipping back to a more cheerful look. “Thank you for entrusting me with it then, Caleb,” she said. “I promise to keep it locked up tight.” She made a key turning gesture in front of her lips. 

He let out a brief chuckle. “It’s only fair, Jester, considering how you revealed yourself to me.” 

“It’s only one of my biggest secrets,” she said, grinning. “No big deal.” 

He found himself giving her a little smile back. “Still,” he said, “I extend that same promise back to you.” He made the key-turning gesture himself, and she giggled. “And if you’d like, I can show you my secret as well.” 

Her eyes went wide again. “You can turn *into* a firebird?” she said, voice near a squeak again. 

“Sadly no, without the right spells,” he said. “But I can show you Brand, if you’d like to see her.” He met her eyes. “Would you like to see her?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Coming as soon as I finish its - I hope - smaller set of edits_
> 
> "I don't think so," she said, meeting his eyes with an apologetic half-smile. "And I think it means I'm going to get my wish in the worst way possible."
> 
> He frowned at her. "Your wish?"
> 
> She let out a sigh and nodded. "Yeah, yeeeah," she said. "I think I'm gonna have to kiss you, Caleb, and sadly, it's going to be entirely for work reasons."


End file.
